News broke Tuesday that Disney/Pixar’s chief John Lasseter was taking a six-month leave of absence because of “missteps.” Immediately following, reports in The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair, and Variety revealed allegations of unwanted kissing, hugging, and touching of his female colleagues. In Los Angeles, women who work in TV animation told BuzzFeed News that although outsiders perceive animation as a wholesome industry, sexual harassment is pervasive and has long gone unchecked.

“I don’t think that should come as a surprise to anybody who’s spent any time in animation,” said Ashley Long, a director who works on adult-oriented shows. “Abuse of power by men — I don’t want to say it’s part of the territory, because that makes it sound like you have to put up with it — but it’s extremely common.”

Lasseter’s departure, although temporary at the moment, followed the revelations of Harvey Weinstein’s decades of alleged sexual harassment and assault, which were first reported by the New York Times Oct. 5 and the New Yorker Oct. 10. The accusations against Weinstein spurred countless women and men to come forward with stories of their own experiences of harassment. Under heightened scrutiny, many prominent men, including some in animation, have been punished. “It was always the law, but suddenly people woke up and realized it’s the law,” Long said.

Still, it was unclear to the women who spoke with BuzzFeed News whether the surge of accountability for sexual harassment in the animation industry would lead to lasting change. Even publicly criticizing Lasseter, who has admitted to making his colleagues uncomfortable, was seen as risky by Elise Willis, a 29-year-old storyboard artist. Calling Lasseter “revered,” Willis was hesitant to be quoted, saying, “I’m still not 100% on using my name, because like I said, things are looking good now, shitty dudes are getting fired now, but I don’t know what it’s gonna be like in the future.” She then added, “The people that allowed his behavior to happen are still there.”

As Vanity Fair reported, Disney executives discussed Lasseter forcibly kissing and fondling a colleague at a party in 2010; the magazine’s source called him a “crazy-horny 13-year-old” they had to “keep in check,” but then went on to praise him as a “genius.” Willis was irritated by that thinking. “He can be replaced!” she said.

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for a comment Wednesday, but on Tuesday it released a statement saying, “We are committed to maintaining an environment in which all employees are respected and empowered to do their best work. We appreciate John’s candor and sincere apology and fully support his sabbatical.” Lasseter's representative did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Animation is a small industry, Long told BuzzFeed News, and there’s “fear” of formally reporting incidents or communicating discomfort with a colleague’s behavior: “You don’t want a bad reputation,” she said. “As a woman, the feeling is you want to go in with absolutely no marks against you, because you’re afraid that any little thing could give them an excuse to not hire you. … A lot of women are very afraid of being seen as troublemakers.”

Ashlyn Anstee, a 28-year-old storyboard artist, said she’d reported verbal harassment by male colleagues at three of six jobs and was brushed off by producers. “A lot of producers are women,” she said. “Women making excuses for men. It’s a frustrating message for young women: If it bothers you, it’s because you’re not strong enough, or you don’t get the joke. … Because this is a boys’ industry, any woman is just kind of visiting, and the men are gonna keep doing what they’re doing and you have to be cool with it.” Younger women, she said, are challenging the status quo, but change has been slow.

Anstee found the term that many used to describe Lasseter’s reported unwanted hugging and kissing — “touchy-feely” — frustrating. The inherently sexual undertone of hugging a female colleague for too long, or kissing her, was obscured by “touchy-feely,” she said.

Marie Bower, a storyboard artist in her thirties, told BuzzFeed News she was happy Lasseter’s behavior had “finally” resulted in consequences. Although Bower said she had never interacted with Lasseter directly during her brief time working at Disney in 2015, his unwanted touching was joked about in the workplace. Bower remembered a male colleague told her that Lasseter would sometimes go in for a kiss when he hugged women. Although that male colleague didn’t recall the exact conversation, he confirmed that Lasseter’s hugs and kisses in the workplace were openly gossiped about. Neither Lasseter nor Disney responded to a request for a comment on this.

“All of this was not hidden information,” Bower said. “The misogyny runs deep in animation, and a lot of it has gone unchecked because it’s been a boys' club for so long.”

Bower was concerned by Lasseter’s memo — and, like Willis, she worried that Lasseter could still be forgiven. “It’s so weird that he’s like, ‘Oh, in six months, I’ll be back,’” Bower said. “Ugh, I hope not.”

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-lasseter-women-in-animationWed, 22 Nov 2017 19:43:56 -0500In the old boys’ club of animation, men have long gotten away with harassment, sources told BuzzFeed News.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-11/22/18/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-21107-1511392411-7.jpg?resize=625:491" width="625" height="491" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Chris Delmas / AFP / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>News broke Tuesday that Disney/Pixar&rsquo;s chief John Lasseter was taking a six-month leave of absence because of &ldquo;<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-lasseter-taking-leave-absence-pixar-missteps-1057113">missteps</a>.&rdquo; Immediately following, reports in <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-lasseters-pattern-alleged-misconduct-detailed-by-disney-pixar-insiders-1059594">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/disney-pixar-john-lasseter-leave-allegations?mbid=social_twitter">Vanity Fair</a>, and <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/john-lasseter-pixar-disney-whisper-network-1202620960/">Variety</a> revealed allegations of unwanted kissing, hugging, and touching of his female colleagues. In Los Angeles, women who work in TV animation told BuzzFeed News that although outsiders perceive animation as a wholesome industry, sexual harassment is pervasive and has long gone unchecked.</p><p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that should come as a surprise to anybody who&rsquo;s spent any time in animation,&rdquo; said Ashley Long, a director who works on adult-oriented shows. &ldquo;Abuse of power by men &mdash; I don&rsquo;t want to say it&rsquo;s part of the territory, because that makes it sound like you have to put up with it &mdash; but it&rsquo;s extremely common.&rdquo;<br /></p><p>Lasseter&rsquo;s departure, although temporary at the moment, followed the revelations of Harvey Weinstein&rsquo;s decades of alleged sexual harassment and assault, which were first reported by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">New York Times</a> Oct. 5 and the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a> Oct. 10. The accusations against Weinstein spurred countless women and men to come forward with stories of their own experiences of harassment. Under heightened scrutiny, many prominent men, including some in animation, have been punished. &ldquo;It was always the law, but suddenly people woke up and realized it&rsquo;s the law,&rdquo; Long said.</p><p>Still, it was unclear to the women who spoke with BuzzFeed News whether the surge of accountability for sexual harassment in the animation industry would lead to lasting change. Even publicly criticizing Lasseter, who has admitted to making his colleagues uncomfortable, was seen as risky by Elise Willis, a 29-year-old storyboard artist. Calling Lasseter &ldquo;revered,&rdquo; Willis was hesitant to be quoted, saying, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m still not 100% on using my name, because like I said, things are looking good now, shitty dudes are getting fired now, but I don&rsquo;t know what it&rsquo;s gonna be like in the future.&rdquo; She then added, &ldquo;The people that allowed his behavior to happen are still there.&rdquo;</p><p>As <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/disney-pixar-john-lasseter-leave-allegations?mbid=social_twitter">Vanity Fair</a> reported, Disney executives discussed Lasseter forcibly kissing and fondling a colleague at a party in 2010; the magazine&rsquo;s source called him a &ldquo;crazy-horny 13-year-old&rdquo; they had to &ldquo;keep in check,&rdquo; but then went on to praise him as a &ldquo;genius.&rdquo; Willis was irritated by that thinking. &ldquo;He can be replaced&#33;&rdquo; she said.</p><p>Disney did not immediately respond to a request for a comment Wednesday, but on Tuesday it released a statement <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/business/media/john-lasseter-pixar-disney-leave.html">saying</a>, &ldquo;We are committed to maintaining an environment in which all employees are respected and empowered to do their best work. We appreciate John&rsquo;s candor and sincere apology and fully support his sabbatical.&rdquo; Lasseter&#39;s representative did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.</p><p>Animation is a small industry, Long told BuzzFeed News, and there&rsquo;s &ldquo;fear&rdquo; of formally reporting incidents or communicating discomfort with a colleague&rsquo;s behavior: &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want a bad reputation,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;As a woman, the feeling is you want to go in with absolutely no marks against you, because you&rsquo;re afraid that any little thing could give them an excuse to not hire you. &hellip; A lot of women are very afraid of being seen as troublemakers.&rdquo;</p><p>Ashlyn Anstee, a 28-year-old storyboard artist, said she&rsquo;d reported verbal harassment by male colleagues at three of six jobs and was brushed off by producers. &ldquo;A lot of producers are women,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Women making excuses for men. It&rsquo;s a frustrating message for young women: <i>If it bothers you, it&rsquo;s because you&rsquo;re not strong enough, or you don&rsquo;t get the joke.</i> &hellip; Because this is a boys&rsquo; industry, any woman is just kind of visiting, and the men are gonna keep doing what they&rsquo;re doing and you have to be cool with it.&rdquo; Younger women, she said, are challenging the status quo, but change has been slow.</p><p>Anstee found the term that many used to describe Lasseter&rsquo;s reported unwanted hugging and kissing &mdash; &ldquo;touchy-feely&rdquo; &mdash; frustrating. The inherently sexual undertone of hugging a female colleague for too long, or kissing her, was obscured by &ldquo;touchy-feely,&rdquo; she said.</p><p>Marie Bower, a storyboard artist in her thirties, told BuzzFeed News she was happy Lasseter&rsquo;s behavior had &ldquo;finally&rdquo; resulted in consequences. Although Bower said she had never interacted with Lasseter directly during her brief time working at Disney in 2015, his unwanted touching was joked about in the workplace. Bower remembered a male colleague told her that Lasseter would sometimes go in for a kiss when he hugged women. Although that male colleague didn&rsquo;t recall the exact conversation, he confirmed that Lasseter&rsquo;s hugs and kisses in the workplace were openly gossiped about. Neither Lasseter nor Disney responded to a request for a comment on this.</p><p>&ldquo;All of this was not hidden information,&rdquo; Bower said. &ldquo;The misogyny runs deep in animation, and a lot of it has gone unchecked because it&rsquo;s been a boys&#39; club for so long.&rdquo;</p><p>Bower was concerned by Lasseter&rsquo;s memo &mdash; and, like Willis, she worried that Lasseter could still be forgiven. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so weird that he&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;Oh, in six months, I&rsquo;ll be back,&rsquo;&rdquo; Bower said. &ldquo;Ugh, I hope not.&rdquo;</p><p><i>If you have information or tips, you can contact this reporter at <a href="mailto:ariane.lange@buzzfeed.com">ariane.lange@buzzfeed.com</a> or send us an encrypted message over Signal at (646) 379-1975. You can learn more about how to reach us here: <a href="https://contact.buzzfeed.com/">contact.buzzfeed.com</a></i></p>
<p><strong>LINK:</strong> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/women-in-animation-open-letter?utm_term=.vmym6xWwL#.qirvyq62N" rel="nofollow">Women Are Calling For An End To Sexual Harassment In The Animation Industry</a></p>
<p><strong>LINK:</strong> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/creative-work-in-connection-with-preparing-the-cartoons?utm_term=.kk8e5N6Jg#.peJvRAPde" rel="nofollow">Inside The Persistent Boys' Club Of Animation</a></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultFemale Directors And Producers Are Working To Turn The Weinstein Fallout Into An Opportunityhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/female-filmmakers-weinstein-fallout?utm_term=4ldqpia

Women take part in a #MeToo protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood on Nov. 12.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Since sexual harassment and assault allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein spurred a torrent of other claims against men in Hollywood this fall, it’s felt like profound change was in the air. The industry has a track record of standing by powerful men who’ve allegedly or admittedly harmed women: Roman Polanski won an Academy Award 26 years after he pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 and then fled the US; Bill Cosby signed a development deal with NBC in 2014, well after he’d been sued for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, and 13 other women agreed to testify against him in the lawsuit; Mel Gibson pleaded no contest in 2011 after he was charged with battering the mother of his child, and he’s currently starring in a Christmas film. But almost overnight, it seemed, men were being held accountable for sexual misconduct.

Among female directors and producers in Hollywood, there’s an unfamiliar feeling about all this: hope.

“It's very empowering,” Haifaa Al Mansour told BuzzFeed News. Mansour became the first Saudi woman to shoot a feature-length film in that country with 2012’s award-winning Wadjda. Her film Mary Shelley premiered this fall at the Toronto International Film Festival. Mansour said that with so much gendered harassment and abuse becoming public, producers in particular are more consciously positioning themselves on women’s side. “I think people are considering me more,” she said. “And considering not only me — considering other female directors more.”

Shadi Petosky, the creator and showrunner of Amazon’s animated series Danger & Eggs, heard about the decades of sexual harassment allegations against Weinstein almost immediately after the New York Times published them Oct. 5. She was disgusted by the report but did did not expect much fallout. “You see this news all the time,” she said. “Nothing really happens.”

Although Petosky was initially skeptical, she quickly decided the moment is “incredibly hopeful” as more women began to come forward with their own experiences and Weinstein was fired.

“What I do hope is that we’re not gonna replace all the white guys with white gals.”

“It feels a little bit how the Women's March feels,” Petosky said. “There's a lot of solidarity, and people are meeting behind the scenes, and creating these Facebook groups, and really working on specific tasks, which is pretty amazing. … Outside of the people that are famous getting fired, there's people all over Hollywood in different jobs who are finally getting let go to create safer spaces.”

Janicza Bravo, a writer-director and Sundance alumna, was “excited” that her younger female colleagues refuse to put up with as much mistreatment as she has over more than a decade in the industry. Still, she warns against a movement that reinforces another strain of inequality in Hollywood: “What I do hope is that we’re not gonna replace all the white guys with white gals.” She added, “In our business, when we talk about women, we tend to be talking about white women. Women of color are sort of ‘and also.’”

Although Bravo was encouraged by male colleagues initiating conversations about the sexual harassment news during episodes of HBO’s Here, Now and Netflix’s Dear White People she’s directed since Oct. 5, she noted critically that she had never seen such a widespread response to racism. Bravo thought the national conversation has persisted so long because most of the women coming forward with stories about Weinstein are white. “It’s tied to white women, and whatever our perception is about the delicacy or fragility of white women,” she said.

For women who have loudly railed against misogyny in Hollywood for years, the weeks after the Weinstein revelations have been strange. Brenda Chapman, the writer-director who won an Oscar in 2013 for her Pixar film, Brave, described herself as “hopeful with a very large dash of cynical.” After years of working on the film she conceived and directed, Chapman was fired from Brave in 2010; she kept her credit, and has been outspoken since then about the double standards women are held to in Hollywood. Her own story left her feeling “mixed” about the current traction women’s stories are getting.

“It’s incredibly frustrating that is has taken this damn long,” Chapman said. “But at the same time, it seems to be finally happening, so maybe this kind of predatory behavior will finally be looked on by society as it should have been centuries ago — with the disgust it deserves.”

Like Chapman, heavy hitters in the industry have expressed skepticism. Kathryn Bigelow — the only woman to ever win an Academy Award for Best Director — told the Los Angeles Times that Hollywood still needs to undergo “a tectonic shift.” Ava DuVernay told Vanity Fair on Oct. 14 that she wasn’t sure whether this moment would lead to real change.

Actor and director Amber Tamblyn said she sees a long road ahead. “You can’t undo a hundred years of the entertainment business in a week,” Tamblyn told BuzzFeed News. “We have to keep speaking about all of the stories. I mean, bombarding them. People are tired of hearing them? Great. Keep talking.”

Alanna Bennett contributed reporting to this story.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/female-filmmakers-weinstein-falloutFri, 17 Nov 2017 14:04:06 -0500Women who direct and produce are feeling tentatively hopeful about their prospects, but know there’s still a long way to go. “You can’t undo a hundred years of the entertainment business in a week,” said Amber Tamblyn.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-11/17/12/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-17941-1510938521-5.jpg?resize=625:417" width="625" height="417" alt="" /></p>
<p>Women take part in a #MeToo protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood on Nov. 12.</p>
<p><small>Lucy Nicholson / Reuters</small></p>
<p>Since sexual harassment and assault allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein spurred a torrent of other claims against men in Hollywood this fall, it&rsquo;s felt like profound change was in the air. The industry has a track record of standing by powerful men who&rsquo;ve allegedly or admittedly harmed women: Roman Polanski won an Academy Award 26 years after he pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-polanski25-2009oct25-story.html">a 13-year-old girl</a> in 1977 and then fled the US; Bill Cosby signed a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/18-moments-that-led-to-bill-cosbys-stunning-downfall?utm_term=.aqKYxv61a#.ewZa7zwK5">development deal with NBC</a> in 2014, well after he&rsquo;d been sued for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, and 13 other women agreed to testify against him in the lawsuit; Mel Gibson pleaded no contest in 2011 after he was charged with <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mel-gibson-pleads-no-contest-to-misdemeanor-battery-charge/">battering the mother of his child</a>, and he&rsquo;s currently starring in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huaGQdrkrK0">Christmas film</a>. But almost overnight, it seemed, men were being held accountable for sexual misconduct.</p><p>Among female directors and producers in Hollywood, there&rsquo;s an unfamiliar feeling about all this: hope.</p><p>&ldquo;It&#39;s very empowering,&rdquo; Haifaa Al Mansour told BuzzFeed News. Mansour became the first Saudi woman to shoot a feature-length film in that country with 2012&rsquo;s award-winning <i>Wadjda.</i> Her film <i>Mary Shelley</i> premiered this fall at the Toronto International Film Festival. Mansour said that with so much gendered harassment and abuse becoming public, producers in particular are more consciously positioning themselves on women&rsquo;s side. &ldquo;I think people are considering me more,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And considering not only me &mdash; considering other female directors more.&rdquo;</p><p>Shadi Petosky, the creator and showrunner of Amazon&rsquo;s animated series <i>Danger &amp; Eggs</i>, heard about the decades of sexual harassment allegations against Weinstein almost immediately after the New York Times published them <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">Oct. 5</a>. She was disgusted by the report but did did not expect much fallout. &ldquo;You see this news all the time,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Nothing really happens.&rdquo;</p><p>Although Petosky was initially skeptical, she quickly decided the moment is &ldquo;incredibly hopeful&rdquo; as more women began to come forward with their own experiences and Weinstein was fired.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What I do hope is that we&rsquo;re not gonna replace all the white guys with white gals.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It feels a little bit how the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/priya/celebs-at-womens-marches?utm_term=.rbOlxpoYy#.kg2vMr9V7">Women&#39;s March</a> feels,&rdquo; Petosky said. &ldquo;There&#39;s a lot of solidarity, and people are meeting behind the scenes, and creating these Facebook groups, and really working on specific tasks, which is pretty amazing. &hellip; Outside of the people that are famous getting fired, there&#39;s people all over Hollywood in different jobs who are finally getting let go to create safer spaces.&rdquo;</p><p>Janicza Bravo, a writer-director and Sundance alumna, was &ldquo;excited&rdquo; that her younger female colleagues refuse to put up with as much mistreatment as she has over more than a decade in the industry. Still, she warns against a movement that reinforces another strain of inequality in Hollywood: &ldquo;What I do hope is that we&rsquo;re not gonna replace all the white guys with white gals.&rdquo; She added, &ldquo;In our business, when we talk about women, we tend to be talking about white women. Women of color are sort of &lsquo;and also.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>Although Bravo was encouraged by male colleagues initiating conversations about the sexual harassment news during episodes of HBO&rsquo;s <i>Here, Now</i> and Netflix&rsquo;s <i>Dear White People</i> she&rsquo;s directed since Oct. 5, she noted critically that she had never seen such a widespread response to racism. Bravo thought the national conversation has persisted so long because most of the women coming forward with stories about Weinstein are white. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tied to white women, and whatever our perception is about the delicacy or fragility of white women,&rdquo; she said.</p><p>For women who have loudly railed against misogyny in Hollywood for years, the weeks after the Weinstein revelations have been strange. Brenda Chapman, the writer-director who won an Oscar in 2013 for her Pixar film, <i>Brave</i>, described herself as &ldquo;hopeful with a very large dash of cynical.&rdquo; After years of working on the film she conceived and directed, Chapman was fired from <i>Brave</i> in 2010; she kept her credit, and has been outspoken since then about the double standards women are held to in Hollywood. Her own story left her feeling &ldquo;mixed&rdquo; about the current traction women&rsquo;s stories are getting.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s incredibly frustrating that is has taken this damn long,&rdquo; Chapman said. &ldquo;But at the same time, it seems to be finally happening, so maybe this kind of predatory behavior will finally be looked on by society as it should have been centuries ago &mdash; with the disgust it deserves.&rdquo;</p><p>Like Chapman, heavy hitters in the industry have expressed skepticism. Kathryn Bigelow &mdash; the only woman to ever win an Academy Award for Best Director &mdash; told the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-hollywood-sexual-harassment-20171012-story.html">Los Angeles Times</a> that Hollywood still needs to undergo &ldquo;a tectonic shift.&rdquo; Ava DuVernay told <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/10/ava-duvernay-hammer-museum-gala">Vanity Fair</a> on Oct. 14 that she wasn&rsquo;t sure whether this moment would lead to real change.</p><p>Actor and director Amber Tamblyn said she sees a long road ahead. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t undo a hundred years of the entertainment business in a week,&rdquo; Tamblyn told BuzzFeed News. &ldquo;We have to keep speaking about all of the stories. I mean, bombarding them. People are tired of hearing them? Great. Keep talking.&rdquo;</p><p><i>Alanna Bennett contributed reporting to this story.</i></p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultWomen take part in a #MeToo protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood on Nov. 12.nonadultWomen Tell The New York Times That Louis C.K. Masturbated In Front Of Themhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/louis-ck-allegations?utm_term=4ldqpia

Rich Fury / Getty Images

Louis C.K. has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women, according to a new report published by the New York Times on Thursday, with two women telling the paper the comedian exposed himself to them in 2002 and began masturbating. On Friday, C.K. released a statement, saying, "These stories are true."

"We were paralyzed,” Dana Min Goodman told the newspaper of the time she said C.K. invited her and her comedy partner, Julia Wolov, to hang out in his Aspen hotel room before asking if he could take out his penis.

"He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating," Goodman said.

Another woman, Abby Schachner, told the Times she could hear C.K. masturbating during a phone call with her in 2003.

Lewis Kay, the comedian's publicist, told BuzzFeed News Thursday that C.K. had no immediate comment. Kay had previously told the Times that C.K. "is not going to answer any questions."

In the past, C.K. has dismissed gossip similar to the allegations reported by the Times on Thursday as just "rumors."

Rumors that the Times was working on a story investigating C.K. had been widely shared in media circles for weeks.

The scheduled Thursday night premiere in New York City for C.K.'s controversial new film, I Love You, Daddy, was abruptly canceled just hours before the story was published. His scheduled appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was also axed, and William H. Macy took his place. On Friday, film distribution company Orchard canceled its scheduled release of I Love You, Daddy. Netflix scrapped a planned standup special.

HBO said in a statement Thursday night that C.K.'s past work would be removed from its on-demand services and that the comedian will no longer be participating in the “Night of Too Many Stars” benefit for autism programs.

Meanwhile, FX, which aired the comedy-drama Louie based loosely on his life in standup, said it was “very troubled” by the Times’ report.

“We are obviously very troubled by the allegations about Louis C.K. published in The New York Times today,” FX said in a statement. “The network has received no allegations of misconduct by Louis C.K. related to any of our 5 shows produced together over the past 8 years. FX Networks and FXP take all necessary actions to protect our employees and thoroughly investigate any allegations of misconduct within our workplace. That said, the matter is currently under review.”

Ben Gabbe / Getty Images

The Times story comes just weeks after the newspaper and the New Yorker revealed multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein spanning back decades. More than 60 women have come forward about their experiences with the producer, inspiring a surge of women — and somemen — to start publicly telling their own stories of harassment and abuse with other celebrities. (Reporter Jodi Kantor worked on both the C.K. and Weinstein pieces for the Times.)

Gawker posted a blind item in 2012 thatsomebelieved was about C.K. “We've heard from several sources that this shameless funnyman whips it out at the most inopportune moments, often at times when his female companions have expressed no interest in watching him go at it,” the blind item said. When Gawker reached one of the female comedians who was the subject of the rumor, they reported she said the “facts were wrong” and she didn’t want to be part of the story. In 2015, Gawker’s sister site Defamer published an anonymous secondhand account from a man who said he confronted C.K. on behalf of two women C.K. had allegedly preyed on. But the anonymous source declined to name the women and C.K. did not comment to Defamer.

The closest thing to a firsthand allegation seemed to be made by comedian Jen Kirkman on her podcast in 2015. On the podcast, she said “a very famous comic” who was “lauded as a genius” was “a known perv.” She did not get into specifics, but she said, “This guy didn’t rape me, but he made a certain difficult decision to go on tour with him really hard. Because I knew if I did, I’d be getting more of the same weird treatment I’d been getting from him.” She said she knew she couldn’t talk about it openly because it would damage her career.

About a month later, journalists beganspeculating that Kirkman had been talking about C.K., and as a result, she deleted the episode. In August 2015, she told Nerdist that the media had blown things out of proportion, and then in 2017, she publicly denied she had been referencing C.K. “There are rumors out there that Louis takes his dick out at women. He has never done that to me," she told the Village Voice in September 2017. “I never said he did, I never implied that he did.”

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Some powerful female comedians have addressed the rumors about C.K. over the years.

Tig Notaro told the Daily Beast in August 2017 that he needed to “handle” the sexual misconduct rumors, “because it’s serious to be assaulted. … It’s serious to be harassed. It’s serious, it’s serious, it’s serious.” (C.K. executive produces Notaro's Amazon series One Mississippi, which featured a storyline in which a character is accused of sexual misconduct and masturbates in front of a woman in his office.)

Notaro told the Times that she believes C.K. released her 2012 comedy album to "cover his tracks."

"He knew it was going to make him look like a good guy, supporting a woman," she said.

"Sadly, I’ve come to learn that Louis C.K.’s victims are not only real,” Notaro told the Times, “but many are actual friends of mine within the comedy community,” citing Goodman and Wolov, who Notaro said confided in her.

In 2016, Roseanne Barr was very upfront with the Daily Beast: “Some of the biggest comics, males, are doing some terrible things. And they’re about to get busted.” She went on to specify, “It’s Louis C.K., locking the door and masturbating in front of women comics and writers. I can’t tell you — I’ve heard so many stories.” She said she didn’t have firsthand knowledge, but had heard whispers of the behavior “for years.” Barr herself had tweeted about these stories before.

C.K., for the most part, had not addressed the allegations over the years. In September 2017, when he was promoting his film I Love You, Daddy, he tried to avoid the question from the New York Times, saying, “If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real.” He then denied that the stories were true. “They’re rumors, that’s all that is.”

He responded similarly in 2016, when Vulture asked him whether the column Gawker posted in 2015 was part of “click-bait and what you see as online misinformation.” He responded: “No. I don’t care about that. That’s nothing to me. That’s not real.”

When pressed further about the secondhand allegation that he had masturbated in front of women without their consent, he said, “Well, you can’t touch stuff like that. There’s one more thing I want to say about this, and it’s important: If you need your public profile to be all positive, you’re sick in the head. I do the work I do, and what happens next I can’t look after. So my thing is that I try to speak to the work whenever I can. Just to the work and not to my life.”

In I Love You, Daddy — which would have opened Nov. 17 — John Malkovich plays a respected auteur with a reputation for sexual impropriety. In the film, C.K.’s character grapples with his daughter’s relationship with the filmmaker, who is a figure in the mold of Roman Polanski or Woody Allen: lauded as a genius, and dogged by allegations of sexual abuse and assault.

BuzzFeed News reporter Kate Aurthur contributed to this story.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/louis-ck-allegationsThu, 09 Nov 2017 15:33:34 -0500Louis C.K. has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women, including two who said the comedian exposed himself to them and masturbated in 2002. C.K.'s publicist has said his client "is not going to answer any questions."arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/20/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-13252-1508529663-2.jpg?resize=625:417" width="625" height="417" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Rich Fury / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>Louis C.K. has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women, according to a new report published by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/arts/television/louis-ck-sexual-misconduct.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=0">New York Times</a> on Thursday, with two women telling the paper the comedian exposed himself to them in 2002 and began masturbating. On Friday, C.K. <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/louis-ck-responds?utm_term=.jsLQK5XE8#.rwj671kP0">released a statement</a>, saying, "These stories are true."</p><p>"We were paralyzed,&rdquo; Dana Min Goodman told the newspaper of the time she said C.K. invited her and her comedy partner, Julia Wolov, to hang out in his Aspen hotel room before asking if he could take out his penis.</p><p>"He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating," Goodman said.</p><p>Another woman, Abby Schachner, told the Times she could hear C.K. masturbating during a phone call with her in 2003.</p><p>"I definitely wasn&rsquo;t encouraging it.&rdquo; Schachner said. &ldquo;You want to believe it&rsquo;s not happening."</p><p>Lewis Kay, the comedian&#39;s publicist, told BuzzFeed News Thursday that C.K. had no immediate comment. Kay had previously told the Times that C.K. "is not going to answer any questions."<br /></p><p>In the past, C.K. has dismissed gossip similar to the allegations reported by the Times on Thursday as just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/movies/louis-ck-rumors-wont-answer.html?mcubz=0">"rumors."</a></p><p>Rumors that the Times was working on a story investigating C.K. had been widely shared in media circles for weeks.</p><p>The scheduled Thursday night premiere in New York City for C.K.&#39;s controversial new film, <i>I Love You, Daddy</i>, was abruptly canceled just hours before the story was published. His scheduled appearance on <i>The Late Show With Stephen Colbert</i> was also axed, and William H. Macy took his place. On Friday, film distribution company Orchard canceled <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/marcusjones/ck-film-release-scrapped?utm_term=.pwqeYjOAd#.hkAxGjP75">its scheduled release of <i>I Love You, Daddy</i></a>. Netflix scrapped a planned standup special.<br /></p><p>HBO said in a statement Thursday night that C.K.&#39;s past work would be removed from its on-demand services and that the comedian will no longer be participating in the &ldquo;Night of Too Many Stars&rdquo; benefit for autism programs.</p><p>Meanwhile, FX, which aired the comedy-drama <i>Louie</i> based loosely on his life in standup, said it was &ldquo;very troubled&rdquo; by the Times&rsquo; report.</p><p>&ldquo;We are obviously very troubled by the allegations about Louis C.K. published in The New York Times today,&rdquo; FX said in a statement. &ldquo;The network has received no allegations of misconduct by Louis C.K. related to any of our 5 shows produced together over the past 8 years. FX Networks and FXP take all necessary actions to protect our employees and thoroughly investigate any allegations of misconduct within our workplace. That said, the matter is currently under review.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-11/9/15/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-10030-1510258151-1.jpg?resize=625:450" width="625" height="450" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Ben Gabbe / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>The Times story comes just weeks after the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?">newspaper</a> and the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a> revealed multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein spanning back decades. More than <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct-allegations?utm_term=.os524Kl68#.vvPD0pa6G">60 women</a> have come forward about their experiences with the producer, inspiring a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/andreborges/women-across-the-globe-are-sharing-their-experiences-with?utm_term=.cr5lX1d4J#.dkaqM356r">surge of women</a> &mdash; and <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelblackmon/james-van-der-beek-opens-up-about-sexual-misconduct">some</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/terry-crews-says-he-was-sexually-harassed-by-a-hollywood">men</a> &mdash; to start publicly telling their own stories of harassment and abuse with other celebrities. (Reporter Jodi Kantor worked on both the C.K. and Weinstein pieces for the Times.)<br /></p><p>Gawker posted a <a href="http://gawker.com/5894527/which-beloved-comedian-likes-to-force-female-comics-to-watch-him-jerk-off?comment=48089921#comments">blind item</a> in 2012 <a href="https://twitter.com/keatonshyler/status/458320835090980864">that</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bafeldman/status/591618173046259712">some</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/dunndunndunn/status/487720643031347201">believed</a> was about C.K. &ldquo;We&#39;ve heard from several sources that this shameless funnyman whips it out at the most inopportune moments, often at times when his female companions have expressed no interest in watching him go at it,&rdquo; the blind item said. When Gawker reached one of the female comedians who was the subject of the rumor, they reported she said the &ldquo;facts were wrong&rdquo; and she didn&rsquo;t want to be part of the story. In 2015, Gawker&rsquo;s sister site <a href="http://defamer.gawker.com/louis-c-k-will-call-you-up-to-talk-about-his-alleged-s-1687820755">Defamer</a> published an anonymous secondhand account from a man who said he confronted C.K. on behalf of two women C.K. had allegedly preyed on. But the anonymous source declined to name the women and C.K. did not comment to Defamer.</p><p>The closest thing to a firsthand allegation seemed to be made by comedian Jen Kirkman on her <a href="https://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/250286/jen-kirkman-louis-ck-gross-behavior-podcast/">podcast in 2015</a>. On the podcast, she said &ldquo;a very famous comic&rdquo; who was &ldquo;lauded as a genius&rdquo; was &ldquo;a known perv.&rdquo; She did not get into specifics, but she said, &ldquo;This guy didn&rsquo;t rape me, but he made a certain difficult decision to go on tour with him really hard. Because I knew if I did, I&rsquo;d be getting more of the same weird treatment I&rsquo;d been getting from him.&rdquo; She said she knew she couldn&rsquo;t talk about it openly because it would damage her career.</p><p>About a month later, journalists <a href="https://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/250286/jen-kirkman-louis-ck-gross-behavior-podcast/">began</a> <a href="https://jezebel.com/jen-kirkman-podcast-implicating-known-perv-comedian-sud-1708690406">speculating</a> that Kirkman had been talking about C.K., and as a result, she deleted the episode. In August 2015, she told <a href="http://flavorwire.com/533257/jen-kirkman-clarifies-comments-that-may-or-may-not-have-been-about-louis-c-k">Nerdist</a> that the media had blown things out of proportion, and then in 2017, she publicly denied she had been referencing C.K. &ldquo;There are rumors out there that Louis takes his dick out at women. He has never done that to me," she told the <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/09/18/jen-kirkman-on-election-night-anxiety-touring-as-a-woman-and-dealing-with-rumors/">Village Voice</a> in September 2017. &ldquo;I never said he did, I never implied that he did.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-11/9/15/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-10068-1510258259-1.jpg?resize=625:938" width="625" height="938" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>Some powerful female comedians have addressed the rumors about C.K. over the years.</p><p>Tig Notaro told the Daily Beast in <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/tig-notaro-louis-ck-needs-to-handle-his-sexual-misconduct-rumors">August 2017</a> that he needed to &ldquo;handle&rdquo; the sexual misconduct rumors, &ldquo;because it&rsquo;s serious to be assaulted. &hellip; It&rsquo;s serious to be harassed. It&rsquo;s serious, it&rsquo;s serious, it&rsquo;s serious.&rdquo; (C.K. executive produces Notaro&#39;s Amazon series <i>One Mississippi</i>, which featured a storyline in which a character is accused of sexual misconduct and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/arts/television/louis-ck-and-tig-notaro-rumors.html?mcubz=0">masturbates</a> in front of a woman in his office.)</p><p>Notaro told the Times that she believes C.K. released her 2012 comedy album to "cover his tracks."</p><p>"He knew it was going to make him look like a good guy, supporting a woman," she said.</p><p>"Sadly, I&rsquo;ve come to learn that Louis C.K.&rsquo;s victims are not only real,&rdquo; Notaro told the Times, &ldquo;but many are actual friends of mine within the comedy community,&rdquo; citing Goodman and Wolov, who Notaro said confided in her.</p><p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/roseanne-barr-calls-out-louis-ck-ive-heard-so-many-stories">Roseanne Barr</a> was very upfront with the Daily Beast: &ldquo;Some of the biggest comics, males, are doing some terrible things. And they&rsquo;re about to get busted.&rdquo; She went on to specify, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Louis C.K., locking the door and masturbating in front of women comics and writers. I can&rsquo;t tell you &mdash; I&rsquo;ve heard so many stories.&rdquo; She said she didn&rsquo;t have firsthand knowledge, but had heard whispers of the behavior &ldquo;for years.&rdquo; Barr herself had tweeted about these stories <a href="https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/622880371764367360">before</a>.</p><p>C.K., for the most part, had not addressed the allegations over the years. In September 2017, when he was promoting his film <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiehasty/louis-ck-is-asking-for-it?utm_term=.juw4kYXJx#.mcd6WqJzL"><i>I Love You, Daddy</i></a>, he tried to avoid the question from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/movies/louis-ck-rumors-wont-answer.html?mcubz=0">New York Times</a>, saying, &ldquo;If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real.&rdquo; He then denied that the stories were true. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re rumors, that&rsquo;s all that is.&rdquo;</p><p>He responded similarly in 2016, when <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2016/06/louis-ck-horace-and-pete-c-v-r.html?mid=full-rss-vulture">Vulture</a> asked him whether the column Gawker posted in 2015 was part of &ldquo;click-bait and what you see as online misinformation.&rdquo; He responded: &ldquo;No. I don&rsquo;t care about that. That&rsquo;s nothing to me. That&rsquo;s not real.&rdquo;</p><p>When pressed further about the secondhand allegation that he had masturbated in front of women without their consent, he said, &ldquo;Well, you can&rsquo;t touch stuff like that. There&rsquo;s one more thing I want to say about this, and it&rsquo;s important: If you need your public profile to be all positive, you&rsquo;re sick in the head. I do the work I do, and what happens next I can&rsquo;t look after. So my thing is that I try to speak to the work whenever I can. Just to the work and not to my life.&rdquo;</p><p>In <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiehasty/louis-ck-is-asking-for-it?utm_term=.juw4kYXJx#.mcd6WqJzL"><i>I Love You, Daddy</i></a> &mdash; which would have opened Nov. 17 &mdash; John Malkovich plays a respected auteur with a reputation for sexual impropriety. In the film, C.K.&rsquo;s character grapples with his daughter&rsquo;s relationship with the filmmaker, who is a figure in the mold of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-polanski25-2009oct25-story.html">Roman Polanski</a> or <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1992/11/farrow199211">Woody Allen</a>: lauded as a genius, and dogged by allegations of sexual abuse and assault.</p><p><i>BuzzFeed News reporter Kate Aurthur contributed to this story.</i></p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultCENTURY CITY, CA - SEPTEMBER 16: Louis C.K. attends FX and Vanity Fair Emmy Celebration at Craft on September 16, 2017 in Century City, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)nonadultnonadultHarvey WeinsteinnonadultnonadultMeghan Linsey: In Country Music, “You’re Supposed To Sing And Shut Your Mouth”https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/meghan-linsey-country-music-me-too?utm_term=4ldqpia

Meghan Linsey

Rick Diamond / Getty Images

In the fall of 2016, country singer Meghan Linsey came forward on social media with a sexual assault allegation against an unnamed industry heavyweight. Disgusted by Donald Trump’s attitude toward women — in particular, his comment that he would “grab ’em by the pussy” — Linsey wrote of her own experience with groping. The Voice star said that, in 2010, “a very powerful man in the music business grabbed up my skirt. He was groping me and proceeded to try to pick me up by my ass on a bus in front of a lot of important people.” She rejected him, and the next night he told her he could drop her into the middle of the ocean where she’d never be heard from again, she recalled in a Facebook post.

When she publicly told her story last year, she received some support — but also considerable scorn. Commenters criticized her for not naming the man she said assaulted and threatened her; some questioned her decision to wait six years to say anything; and others told her that this kind of abuse should be expected in the entertainment industry. “It was very mixed reviews a year ago, and part of that was the reason I didn’t come out with the name,” she said, days before the release of her new album, Bold Like a Lion. She declined again to name him to BuzzFeed News this November.

Linsey has watched with interest as the surge of sexual misconduct allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein prompts public allegations against a series of powerful men, many of whom work in other industries. But she’s not sure whether that will happen for country.

"I hope that people start to open their eyes to it and see what’s going on."

“Country music is so hush-hush about everything,” she said. “It’s so much harder to speak out.”

Linsey was insistent that, although country music has largely avoided the fallout of the Weinstein revelations, it does have a problem with harassment and assault. According to her, there are abusers in the industry whose misdeeds are open secrets. She pointed to Kirt Webster, the powerful country music publicist whose clients included Dolly Parton: Just this week, Austin Rick, his former client, publicly alleged that Webster molested and sexually assaulted him. Webster denied the allegations, but his firm, Webster Public Relations, was promptly renamed, and a spokesperson announced Webster had gone on leave.

“When you have a person like [Webster], everybody kind of knows, and nobody says anything,” Linsey said. “People do dismiss it, and they go, 'well, he’s so important, he works with all these people.' I hope that people start to open their eyes to it and see what’s going on. … This business is so small — it’s such a small town.”

For real change in the country music industry to happen, she said, “More people are gonna have to start speaking out.”

She said that after she wrote in 2016 about being groped, several women came to her and told her they’d been harassed or assaulted by the same man, too. But all these conversations happened “under the table … a lot of women in country music feel like they can’t say anything, and they can’t talk,” she said. Privately, they told her “he’s handsy and grabby and thinks that he can do whatever he wants.”

There’s an expectation in the country music industry that performers should never address anything that might provoke their fans: “You’re supposed to sing and shut your mouth,” Linsey explained. As she understands it, that includes a code of silence on allegations of sexual harassment or assault. She recalled both her manager and the head of her label at the time telling her she should not pursue any action or make accusations against the individual she said groped and threatened her, because it would be detrimental to her career. Neither Big Machine Label Group nor Linsey’s manager from 2010 responded to BuzzFeed News’ request for further comment, although the label denied her account last year, saying that it would “never” condone such harassment and would never advise an artist not to complain about it.

Linsey is not afraid of controversy: She took a knee after singing the national anthem during an NFL game in September, showing her solidarity with protests against police brutality faced disproportionately by black Americans. At the time, she wrote in the Washington Post, “My decision may hurt my career, but it was the only choice for me. This cause is more important than my record sales.”

Despite her demonstrated moxie, the risk in naming her alleged assailant is too great to bear alone, she said. She noted that as influential women such as Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Rose McGowan told their stories about Weinstein, it made it seem safer for others to come forward. Linsey said, “As women, you really feel like you can’t say anything until you get to a place in your career where you’re winning, and you’re empowered.”

Until women in the country music industry band together, Linsey believes silence will prevail. “When you’re the only one, it’s hard,” she said.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/meghan-linsey-country-music-me-tooFri, 03 Nov 2017 12:58:34 -0400“More people are gonna have to start speaking out” about sexual harassment in the industry, said country singer Meghan Linsey.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-11/2/20/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-25787-1509668514-5.jpg?resize=625:434" width="625" height="434" alt="" /></p>
<p>Meghan Linsey</p>
<p><small>Rick Diamond / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>In the fall of 2016, country singer Meghan Linsey came forward on social media with a sexual assault allegation against an unnamed industry heavyweight. Disgusted by Donald Trump&rsquo;s attitude toward women &mdash; in particular, his comment that he would &ldquo;grab &rsquo;em by the pussy&rdquo; &mdash; Linsey <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/music/voice-star-meghan-linsey-speaks-out-about-sexual-harassment-in-frank-trump-inspired-facebook-post-212149195.html">wrote of her own experience</a> with groping. The <i>Voice</i> star said that, in 2010, &ldquo;a very powerful man in the music business grabbed up my skirt. He was groping me and proceeded to try to pick me up by my ass on a bus in front of a lot of important people.&rdquo; She rejected him, and the next night he told her he could drop her into the middle of the ocean where she&rsquo;d never be heard from again, she recalled in a Facebook post.<br /></p><p>When she publicly told her story last year, she received some support &mdash; but also considerable scorn. Commenters criticized her for not naming the man she said assaulted and threatened her; some questioned her decision to wait six years to say anything; and others told her that this kind of abuse should be expected in the entertainment industry. &ldquo;It was very mixed reviews a year ago, and part of that was the reason I didn&rsquo;t come out with the name,&rdquo; she said, days before the release of her new album, <i>Bold Like a Lion</i>. She declined again to name him to BuzzFeed News this November.</p><p>Linsey has watched with interest as the surge of sexual misconduct allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein prompts public allegations against a series of powerful men, many of whom work in other industries. But she&rsquo;s not sure whether that will happen for country.</p>
<p>"I hope that people start to open their eyes to it and see what&rsquo;s going on."</p>
<p>&ldquo;Country music is so hush-hush about everything,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so much harder to speak out.&rdquo;</p><p>Linsey was insistent that, although country music has largely avoided the fallout of the Weinstein revelations, it does have a problem with harassment and assault. According to her, there are abusers in the industry whose misdeeds are open secrets. She pointed to Kirt Webster, the powerful country music publicist whose clients included Dolly Parton: Just this week, Austin Rick, his former client, <a href="http://www.nashvillescene.com/news/article/20981170/former-country-singer-accuses-pr-exec-kirt-webster-of-sexual-misconduct">publicly alleged</a> that Webster molested and sexually assaulted him. Webster denied the allegations, but his firm, Webster Public Relations, was promptly <a href="http://variety.com/2017/music/news/country-music-pr-sexual-abuse-alleged-1202604647/">renamed</a>, and a spokesperson announced Webster had gone on leave.</p><p>&ldquo;When you have a person like [Webster], everybody kind of knows, and nobody says anything,&rdquo; Linsey said. &ldquo;People do dismiss it, and they go, &#39;well, he&rsquo;s so important, he works with all these people.&#39; I hope that people start to open their eyes to it and see what&rsquo;s going on. &hellip; This business is so small &mdash; it&rsquo;s such a small town.&rdquo;</p><p>For real change in the country music industry to happen, she said, &ldquo;More people are gonna have to start speaking out.&rdquo;</p>
<p>If you have information or tips, you can contact this reporter at <a href="mailto:ariane.lange@buzzfeed.com">ariane.lange@buzzfeed.com</a> or send us an encrypted message over Signal at (646) 379-1975. You can learn more about how to reach us here: <a href="https://contact.buzzfeed.com">contact.buzzfeed.com</a> </p>
<p>She said that after she wrote in 2016 about being groped, several women came to her and told her they&rsquo;d been harassed or assaulted by the same man, too. But all these conversations happened &ldquo;under the table &hellip; a lot of women in country music feel like they can&rsquo;t say anything, and they can&rsquo;t talk,&rdquo; she said. Privately, they told her &ldquo;he&rsquo;s handsy and grabby and thinks that he can do whatever he wants.&rdquo;</p><p>There&rsquo;s an expectation in the country music industry that performers should never address anything that might provoke their fans: &ldquo;You&rsquo;re supposed to sing and shut your mouth,&rdquo; Linsey explained. As she understands it, that includes a code of silence on allegations of sexual harassment or assault. She recalled both her manager and the head of her label at the time telling her she should not pursue any action or make accusations against the individual she said groped and threatened her, because it would be detrimental to her career. Neither Big Machine Label Group nor Linsey&rsquo;s manager from 2010 responded to BuzzFeed News&rsquo; request for further comment, although the label denied her account last year, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2016/10/10/voice-alum-claims-big-machine-manager-told-her-to-keep-quiet-about-sexual-assault.html">saying</a> that it would &ldquo;never&rdquo; condone such harassment and would never advise an artist not to complain about it.</p><p>Linsey is not afraid of controversy: She took a knee after singing the national anthem during an NFL game in September, showing her solidarity with protests against police brutality faced disproportionately by black Americans. At the time, she wrote in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/29/im-a-white-country-singer-i-still-took-a-knee-after-i-sang-the-national-anthem-at-an-nfl-game/">Washington Post</a>, &ldquo;My decision may hurt my career, but it was the only choice for me. This cause is more important than my record sales.&rdquo;</p><p>Despite her demonstrated moxie, the risk in naming her alleged assailant is too great to bear alone, she said. She noted that as influential women such as Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Rose McGowan told their stories about Weinstein, it made it seem safer for others to come forward. Linsey said, &ldquo;As women, you really feel like you can&rsquo;t say anything until you get to a place in your career where you&rsquo;re winning, and you&rsquo;re empowered.&rdquo;</p><p>Until women in the country music industry band together, Linsey believes silence will prevail. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re the only one, it&rsquo;s hard,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultMeghan Linseynonadult<p>"I hope that people start to open their eyes to it and see what’s going on."</p>nonadult世界を”少しずつ動かす”人たちをとらえた写真が美しい。https://www.buzzfeed.com/bfjapan/powerful-womens-marches?utm_term=4ldqpia
眼差しに宿る力が写真越しに伝わってくる。

ワシントンD.C.

ロードアイランド州プロビデンス出身のナディア・ダ・ローサ（15才）。女性の権利デモに参加している。

Sait Serkan Gurbuz / ASSOCIATED PRESS

パリ

エッフェル塔を背にデモをする参加者たち。

Christophe Ena / AP

ラスベガス（ネバダ州、アメリカ）

アドルフ・ヒトラーの格好をした男性に向かって怒鳴る女性。

John Locher / AP

アテネ

移民と難民がデモ行進をする中、プラカードを持っている1人の少年。

Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP / Getty Images

パークシティ（ユタ州）

2017年サンダンス映画祭。「メーン通りの女性の権利デモ」に人権活動家ドローレス・ウエルタが参加している。

Arthur Mola / AP

ベルリン（ドイツ）

ブランデンブルク門前で行われた海外民主党員の抗議運動で、星条旗をヒジャブのように身にまとう女性。

Gregor Fischer / AFP / Getty Images

トランプタワー（ニューヨーク）

女性たちがデモ行進をする中、トランプタワー前の警備の様子。

Bryan R. Smith / AFP / Getty Images

ヘルシンキ（フィンランド）

アメリカ大統領ドナルド・トランプとドイツの独裁者アドルフ・ヒトラーを描いたポスターを掲げる抗議者。

Jussi Nukari / AFP / Getty Images

ワシントンD.C.

ペンシルバニア通りを行進する抗議者たち。

Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images

バルセロナ

見逃しがちな小さな”参加者”。

Lluis Gene / AFP / Getty Images

トレントン（ニュージャージー州）

ニュージャージー州ユーイングで真ん中に立つ女優のスージー・ケイン。Patriots Theater at the War Memorialで行われた決起集会に参加し、プラカードを掲げている。

ブダペスト（ハンガリー）

ロンドン

ロサンゼルス

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/bfjapan/powerful-womens-marchesThu, 02 Nov 2017 19:01:09 -0400眼差しに宿る力が写真越しに伝わってくる。bfjapannonadultロードアイランド州プロビデンス出身のナディア・ダ・ローサ（15才）。女性の権利デモに参加している。nonadultエッフェル塔を背にデモをする参加者たち。nonadultアドルフ・ヒトラーの格好をした男性に向かって怒鳴る女性。nonadult移民と難民がデモ行進をする中、プラカードを持っている1人の少年。nonadult2017年サンダンス映画祭。「メーン通りの女性の権利デモ」に人権活動家ドローレス・ウエルタが参加している。nonadultブランデンブルク門前で行われた海外民主党員の抗議運動で、星条旗をヒジャブのように身にまとう女性。nonadult女性たちがデモ行進をする中、トランプタワー前の警備の様子。nonadultアメリカ大統領ドナルド・トランプとドイツの独裁者アドルフ・ヒトラーを描いたポスターを掲げる抗議者。nonadult南極大陸で、女性の権利デモの写真を撮る人たち。nonadultペンシルバニア通りを行進する抗議者たち。nonadult見逃しがちな小さな”参加者”。nonadultニュージャージー州ユーイングで真ん中に立つ女優のスージー・ケイン。Patriots Theater at the War Memorialで行われた決起集会に参加し、プラカードを掲げている。nonadult3人の女性が1000人以上のグループをリードしている。ピッツバーグのイーストリバティ地区。nonadult1000人以上が集まったワシントン・スクエア公園。シャーロット・クリスト（写真左）は星条旗をブルカのように身につけ、デスティニー・ヘンリーとポーズをとっている。nonadult2017年1月21日土曜日、女性の権利デモをしながらインディペンデンス通りを歩く抗議者たち。nonadultマディソン街を横断するデモ隊。nonadult握手をするために手を差し出すジョン・ルイス下院議員。nonadult女性の権利デモをしながら、サンバ・レゲエのパフォーマンスをする音楽グループ「バタラD.C.」。nonadultグローブナー広場のアメリカ大使館からトラファルガー広場に向かって、自由の女神のコスチュームを着てデモ行進する抗議者。nonadultアーティストのケイト・ワイゲル（写真右）。メイン州ブルワー。nonadultプラカードをしっかりと抱える少年。nonadult突き上げたこぶしの力強さを感じる。nonadult「ファシズムに反対する女性のデモ行進」と書かれた幕を広げる活動家たち。nonadult力強く声をあげる女性たち。nonadult女性のデモ行進に参加するため、キャピタル・サウス駅のプラットホームを訪れる抗議者たち。nonadultデモ行進から抜け出してきたエミリア・レイエス（写真左、41歳）とダニエラ・リヴェラ（15歳）。ダニエラはキンセアニェーラ（15才になった女の子のお祝い）の写真を撮るために独立記念塔の前にいた。数百人の人たち（多くはアメリカ人）がアメリカ大使館の前で抗議して、メキシコシティの大通りの4車線を封鎖している。nonadultシビック・センター公園に集まったデモ隊。nonadultムセーウム広場で行われた女性のデモ行進。アムステルダム国立美術館の「iamsterdam」像の前からアメリカ領事館向かって前進する抗議者たち。nonadultトランプ大統領に抗議の意を示す女性。nonadultお手製プラカードを掲げる。nonadultイギリスのロンドンで行われた女性のデモ行進で、抗議者がドナルド・トランプ大統領の人形を掲げている。nonadult大事なのは抗議中も「愛」の気持ちを忘れないことだ。nonadult<i>この記事は<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/women-marching">英語</a>から編集・翻訳しました。</i>nonadultnonadultWomen Are Calling For An End To Sexual Harassment In The Animation Industryhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/women-in-animation-open-letter?utm_term=4ldqpia
Jason Kempin / Getty Images

On Thursday, 217 women and gender nonconforming people in animation sent a letter to more than a dozen studios demanding an end to sexism and sexual harassment in the animation industry. Recipients included executives at Disney, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks Animation, Bento Box, OddBot, Paramount, Shadowmachine, Sony Pictures Animation, Stoopid Buddy, Titmouse, and Warner Bros.

Though there are very few women with creator credits on TV shows, several among that small group endorsed the letter’s message — among them are Rebecca Sugar, the creator of Steven Universe; Shadi Petosky, the creator of Danger & Eggs; and Lauren Faust, the creator of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. There are also multiple Emmy winners on the list.

The letter began to take shape last week after a swell of harassment stories were exchanged publicly and privately, moving the group into collective action. In the letter, they explicitly call for clear and uniformly enforced sexual harassment policies from studios; stronger action from their union against harassers; and more support from their male colleagues. “This abuse has got to stop,” they said.

Women have long noted the lack of gender equity in animation, a fact that is often overlooked both within the industry and by mainstream media outlets. In December, for example, the Hollywood Reporter infamously published a roundtable discussion “on avoiding ethnic stereotypes and how to ‘break the mold’ of princesses” featuring Seth Rogen and six other white men: The article was met with widespread derision online and eyerolls offline.

Harassment in particular has received even less attention: As the letter points out, it was only in the last few weeks that conversations about harassment started to happen more openly, and the letter writers were “struck by the pervasiveness of the problem.”

In interviews with more than two dozen women in the industry this year, women repeatedly told BuzzFeed News that animation is “a small industry” and thus they feared that speaking out about gender-based mistreatment would negatively affect their careers. In these interviews — which were conducted before the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein prompted a reckoning among women in the industry — a majority of women said they had a suspicion that nothing would come of any allegation they made about harassment; many said they worried making such a report would make them seem “difficult” or “not fun.”

But this letter seems to mark a shift. More than 200 women and gender nonconforming people have now publicly called an end to their silence.

Read the letter in full:

An Open Letter to the Animation Community

We, the women and gender non-conforming people of the animation community, would like to address and highlight the pervasive problem of sexism and sexual harassment in our business. We write this letter with the hope that change is possible, and ask that you listen to our stories and then make every effort to bring a real and lasting change to the culture of animation studios.

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, many of the women who work in animation have begun discussing more openly issues that we have dealt with quietly throughout our careers. As we came together to share our stories of sexism, sexual harassment and, in some cases, sexual assault, we were struck by the pervasiveness of the problem. Every one of us has a story to share, from tossed-off comments about our body parts that were framed as “jokes” to women being cornered in dark rooms by male colleagues to criminal assault.

Our business has always been male-dominated. Women make up only 23% of union employees, so it’s no surprise that problems with sexism and sexual harassment exist. Sexual harassment and assault are widespread issues that primarily affect women, with women of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups affected at an even greater rate.

As more women have entered the animation workforce, it seems that some men have not embraced this change. They still frequently make crass sexual remarks that make it clear women are not welcome on their crews. Some have pressed colleagues for romantic or sexual relationships, despite our clear disinterest. And some have seen the entrance of more women into the industry as an opportunity to exploit and victimize younger workers on their crews who are looking for mentorship. In addition, when sexual predators are caught at one workplace, they seem to easily find a job at another studio, sometimes even following their victims from job to job. We are tired of relying on whisper networks to know who isn’t safe to meet with alone. We want our supervisors to protect us from harassment and assault.

This abuse has got to stop.

The signatories of this letter demand that you take sexual harassment seriously. We ask that:

1. Every studio puts in place clear and enforceable sexual harassment policies and takes every report seriously. It must be clear to studio leadership, including producers, that, no matter who the abuser is, they must investigate every report or face consequences themselves.

2. The Animation Guild add language in our constitution that states that it can “censure, fine, suspend or expel any member of the guild who shall, in the opinion of the Executive Board, be found guilty of any act, omission, or conduct which is prejudicial to the welfare of the guild.” To craft and support the new language, we ask that an Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Committee be created to help educate and prevent future occurrences.

3. Our male colleagues start speaking up and standing up for us. When their co-workers make sexist remarks, or when they see sexual harassment happening, we expect them to say something. Stop making excuses for bad behavior in your friends and co-workers, and tell them what they are doing is wrong.

It has not been easy for us to share our stories with each other. Many of us were afraid because our victimizers are powerful or well-liked. Others were worried that if they came forward it would affect their careers. Some of us have come forward in the past, only to have our concerns brushed aside, or for our supervisors to tell us “he’s just from a different era.” All of us are saddened and disheartened to hear how widespread the problem of sexual harassment still is in the animation industry, and how many of our friends had been suffering in secret.

It is with this in mind that we resolve to do everything we can to prevent anyone else from being victimized. We are united in our mission to wipe out sexual harassment in the animation industry, and we will no longer be silent.

Signed,

If you know something that deserves to be investigated and exposed in the public interest, please email us.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/women-in-animation-open-letterThu, 19 Oct 2017 13:43:03 -0400“We are united in our mission to wipe out sexual harassment in the animation industry, and we will no longer be silent.”arianelangenonadult
<p><small>Jason Kempin / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>On Thursday, 217 women and gender nonconforming people in animation sent a letter to more than a dozen studios demanding an end to sexism and sexual harassment in the animation industry. Recipients included executives at Disney, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks Animation, Bento Box, OddBot, Paramount, Shadowmachine, Sony Pictures Animation, Stoopid Buddy, Titmouse, and Warner Bros.<br /></p><p>Though there are very few women with creator credits on TV shows, several among that small group endorsed the letter&rsquo;s message &mdash; among them are Rebecca Sugar, the creator of <i>Steven Universe</i>; Shadi Petosky, the creator of <i>Danger &amp; Eggs</i>; and Lauren Faust, the creator of <i>My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.</i> There are also multiple Emmy winners on the list.</p><p>The letter began to take shape last week after a swell of harassment stories were exchanged publicly and privately, moving the group into collective action. In the letter, they explicitly call for clear and uniformly enforced sexual harassment policies from studios; stronger action from their union against harassers; and more support from their male colleagues. &ldquo;This abuse has got to stop,&rdquo; they said.</p><p>Women have long noted the lack of gender equity in animation, a fact that is often overlooked both within the industry and by mainstream media outlets. In December, for example, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/animation-roundtable-seth-rogen-6-more-avoiding-ethnic-stereotypes-creating-ugly-cute-princ">the Hollywood Reporter</a> infamously published a roundtable discussion &ldquo;on avoiding ethnic stereotypes and how to &lsquo;break the mold&rsquo; of princesses&rdquo; featuring Seth Rogen and six other white men: The article was met with widespread derision online and eyerolls offline.<br /><br />Harassment in particular has received even less attention: As the letter points out, it was only in the last few weeks that conversations about harassment started to happen more openly, and the letter writers were &ldquo;struck by the pervasiveness of the problem.&rdquo;<br /></p><p>In interviews with more than two dozen women in the industry this year, women repeatedly told BuzzFeed News that animation is &ldquo;a small industry&rdquo; and thus they feared that speaking out about gender-based mistreatment would negatively affect their careers. In these interviews &mdash; which were conducted before the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein prompted a reckoning among women in the industry &mdash; a majority of women said they had a suspicion that nothing would come of any allegation they made about harassment; many said they worried making such a report would make them seem &ldquo;difficult&rdquo; or &ldquo;not fun.&rdquo;</p><p>But this letter seems to mark a shift. More than 200 women and gender nonconforming people have now publicly called an end to their silence.</p><p><b><i>Read the letter in full:</i></b></p>
<p>An Open Letter to the Animation Community</p><p>We, the women and gender non-conforming people of the animation community, would like to address and highlight the pervasive problem of sexism and sexual harassment in our business. We write this letter with the hope that change is possible, and ask that you listen to our stories and then make every effort to bring a real and lasting change to the culture of animation studios.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, many of the women who work in animation have begun discussing more openly issues that we have dealt with quietly throughout our careers. As we came together to share our stories of sexism, sexual harassment and, in some cases, sexual assault, we were struck by the pervasiveness of the problem. Every one of us has a story to share, from tossed-off comments about our body parts that were framed as &ldquo;jokes&rdquo; to women being cornered in dark rooms by male colleagues to criminal assault.</p><p><br /></p><p>Our business has always been male-dominated. Women make up only 23% of union employees, so it&rsquo;s no surprise that problems with sexism and sexual harassment exist. Sexual harassment and assault are widespread issues that primarily affect women, with women of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups affected at an even greater rate.</p><p><br /></p><p>As more women have entered the animation workforce, it seems that some men have not embraced this change. They still frequently make crass sexual remarks that make it clear women are not welcome on their crews. Some have pressed colleagues for romantic or sexual relationships, despite our clear disinterest. And some have seen the entrance of more women into the industry as an opportunity to exploit and victimize younger workers on their crews who are looking for mentorship. In addition, when sexual predators are caught at one workplace, they seem to easily find a job at another studio, sometimes even following their victims from job to job. We are tired of relying on whisper networks to know who isn&rsquo;t safe to meet with alone. We want our supervisors to protect us from harassment and assault.</p><p><br /></p><p>This abuse has got to stop.</p><p><br /></p><p>The signatories of this letter demand that you take sexual harassment seriously. We ask that:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. Every studio puts in place clear and enforceable sexual harassment policies and takes every report seriously. It must be clear to studio leadership, including producers, that, no matter who the abuser is, they must investigate every report or face consequences themselves.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. The Animation Guild add language in our constitution that states that it can &ldquo;censure, fine, suspend or expel any member of the guild who shall, in the opinion of the Executive Board, be found guilty of any act, omission, or conduct which is prejudicial to the welfare of the guild.&rdquo; To craft and support the new language, we ask that an Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Committee be created to help educate and prevent future occurrences.</p><p><br /></p><p>3. Our male colleagues start speaking up and standing up for us. When their co-workers make sexist remarks, or when they see sexual harassment happening, we expect them to say something. Stop making excuses for bad behavior in your friends and co-workers, and tell them what they are doing is wrong.</p><p><br /></p><p>It has not been easy for us to share our stories with each other. Many of us were afraid because our victimizers are powerful or well-liked. Others were worried that if they came forward it would affect their careers. Some of us have come forward in the past, only to have our concerns brushed aside, or for our supervisors to tell us &ldquo;he&rsquo;s just from a different era.&rdquo; All of us are saddened and disheartened to hear how widespread the problem of sexual harassment still is in the animation industry, and how many of our friends had been suffering in secret.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is with this in mind that we resolve to do everything we can to prevent anyone else from being victimized. We are united in our mission to wipe out sexual harassment in the animation industry, and we will no longer be silent.<br /><br /><br />Signed,</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/19/12/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-24880-1508430386-7.jpg?crop=1275:850;0,800&resize=625:*" width="625" height="417" alt="" /></p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/19/12/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-8046-1508430448-5.jpg?resize=625:809" width="625" height="809" alt="" /></p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/19/12/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-6053-1508430493-7.jpg?crop=1275:656;0,45&resize=625:*" width="625" height="322" alt="" /></p>
<p><i>If you know something that deserves to be investigated and exposed in the public interest, please email us.</i><br /></p>
<p><strong>LINK:</strong> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/creative-work-in-connection-with-preparing-the-cartoons?utm_term=.ybY2qEBVp#.osGELm29v" rel="nofollow">Inside The Persistent Boys Club Of Animation</a></p>
<p><strong>LINK:</strong> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/the-loud-house-chris-savino-suspension-harassment?utm_term=.vdPw9DZmv#.qkZpBLayM" rel="nofollow">Nickelodeon Has Fired The Creator Of “The Loud House” After Several Reports Of Harassment</a></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultnonadultnonadultnonadult<small>Rebecca Sugar and Shadi Petosky</small>nonadultnonadultNickelodeon Has Fired The Creator Of "The Loud House" After Several Reports Of Harassmenthttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/the-loud-house-chris-savino-suspension-harassment?utm_term=4ldqpia

Chris Savino in February 2016.

Vivien Killilea / Getty Images

Chris Savino, the creator and executive producer of Nickelodeon’s popular cartoon series The Loud House, was fired after several reported instances of harassment. Cartoon Brew had reported his suspension Tuesday (Oct. 17).

A spokesperson for Nickelodeon said in a statement Oct. 19, "Chris Savino is no longer working with Nickelodeon. We take allegations of misconduct very seriously, and we are committed to fostering a safe and professional workplace environment that is free of harassment or other kinds of inappropriate conduct."

The Loud House, which is currently in its second season, will continue to air on Nickelodeon and be in production. Season three is scheduled to premiere in early 2018.

On Wednesday (Oct. 18), Nickelodeon did not confirm the suspension, but sent this statement: “Viacom is committed to the safety and well-being of our employees, and to fostering a workplace free from harassment. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specific employee matters, but we take all allegations of this nature very seriously, investigate them thoroughly and take any necessary actions as a result.”

The Loud House premiered in 2016 and centers on the life of a boy who lives with 10 sisters. It is in its second season; Nickelodeon greenlit a third season in October last year.

Savino’s manager did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/the-loud-house-chris-savino-suspension-harassmentWed, 18 Oct 2017 21:23:29 -0400Chris Savino was removed from the hit cartoon series.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/18/20/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-26735-1508372343-1.jpg?resize=625:419" width="625" height="419" alt="" /></p>
<p>Chris Savino in February 2016.</p>
<p><small>Vivien Killilea / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>Chris Savino, the creator and executive producer of Nickelodeon&rsquo;s popular cartoon series <i>The Loud House</i>, was fired after several reported instances of harassment. <a href="http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/nickelodeon-suspends-loud-house-creator-chris-savino-numerous-harassment-claims-exclusive-154068.html">Cartoon Brew</a> had reported his suspension Tuesday (Oct. 17).<br /><br />A spokesperson for Nickelodeon said in a statement Oct. 19, "Chris Savino is no longer working with Nickelodeon. We take allegations of misconduct very seriously, and we are committed to fostering a safe and professional workplace environment that is free of harassment or other kinds of inappropriate conduct."</p><p><i>The Loud House</i>, which is currently in its second season, will continue to air on Nickelodeon and be in production. Season three is scheduled to premiere in early 2018.</p><p>On Wednesday (Oct. 18), Nickelodeon did not confirm the suspension, but sent this statement: &ldquo;Viacom is committed to the safety and well-being of our employees, and to fostering a workplace free from harassment. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specific employee matters, but we take all allegations of this nature very seriously, investigate them thoroughly and take any necessary actions as a result.&rdquo;</p><p><i>The Loud House</i> premiered in 2016 and centers on the life of a boy who lives with 10 sisters. It is in its second season; Nickelodeon greenlit a third season in October last year.</p><p>Savino&rsquo;s manager did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News&rsquo; request for comment.</p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultChris Savino in February 2016.nonadultUSC Cancels $5 Million Endowment From Harvey Weinsteinhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/usc-women-directors-harvey-weinstein?utm_term=4ldqpia

Yann Coatsaliou / AFP / Getty Images

In the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations lodged against Harvey Weinstein, the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts has decided not to accept a pledged $5 million endowment from the now-ousted executive of the Weinstein Company. Since last Thursday, more than 20 women — including Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie — have alleged Weinstein made inappropriate, unwanted sexual advances; several women claimed he sexually assaulted them.

The endowment was to fund scholarships for women directors at USC. Just last Thursday, Weinstein touted his gift to the school in a statement he gave to the New York Times. "One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental it has been in the works for a year," he wrote in his statement, which addressed the newspaper's report about the decades of alleged sexual harassment.

A spokesperson for USC confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the decision to nix Weinstein's endowment was made on Tuesday (Oct. 10) — the same day The New Yorker published a story that included three women's stories of being raped by Weinstein and the New York Times published a follow-up story detailing new allegations of harassment and coercion.

Through a representative, Weinstein "unequivocally denied" having nonconsensual sex to the New Yorker.

Weinstein's representative did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for a comment on the rejected donation to the university. But in the statement last week, Weinstein said he would name the endowment after his mother, adding, "I won't disappoint her."

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/usc-women-directors-harvey-weinsteinTue, 10 Oct 2017 21:22:30 -0400After allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against the producer, the University of Southern California decided to nix a planned donation from him.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/10/19/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-10163-1507678137-3.jpg?resize=625:417" width="625" height="417" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Yann Coatsaliou / AFP / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>In the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations lodged against Harvey Weinstein, the University of Southern California&#39;s School of Cinematic Arts has decided not to accept a pledged $5 million endowment from the now-ousted executive of the Weinstein Company. Since last Thursday, more than 20 women &mdash; including Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie &mdash; have alleged Weinstein made inappropriate, unwanted sexual advances; several women claimed he sexually assaulted them.</p><p>The endowment was to fund scholarships for women directors at USC. Just last Thursday, Weinstein touted his gift to the school in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/us/statement-from-harvey-weinstein.html">statement</a> he gave to the New York Times. "One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental it has been in the works for a year," he wrote in his statement, which addressed the newspaper&#39;s report about the decades of alleged sexual harassment.</p><p>A spokesperson for USC confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the decision to nix Weinstein&#39;s endowment was made on Tuesday (Oct. 10) &mdash; the same day <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">The New Yorker</a> published a story that included three women&#39;s stories of being raped by Weinstein and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html">New York Times</a> published a follow-up story detailing new allegations of harassment and coercion.</p><p>Through a representative, Weinstein "unequivocally denied" having nonconsensual sex to the New Yorker.</p><p>Weinstein&#39;s representative did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News&#39; request for a comment on the rejected donation to the university. But in the statement last week, Weinstein said he would name the endowment after his mother, adding, "I won&#39;t disappoint her."</p><h2><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct-allegations">Here Are The Women Who Harvey Weinstein Has Allegedly Sexually Harassed Or Assaulted</a></h2><h2><br /></h2><h2><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/harvey-weinstein-rape-accusations-new-yorker">Three Women Have Accused Harvey Weinstein Of Rape In A New Yorker Expos&eacute;</a></h2>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultHere Are The Women Who Harvey Weinstein Has Allegedly Sexually Harassed Or Assaultedhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct-allegations?utm_term=4ldqpia
Lupita Nyong’o, Lena Headey, Cara Delevingne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, and more have come forward.

Harvey Weinstein was fired from his position as co-chair of the Weinstein Company days after the New York Times published an article that detailed decades of sexual harassment allegations against the celebrated executive.

Then, on Oct. 10, the New Yorker published a story that included multiple allegations of rape and additional alleged instances of sexual harassment — in a statement to the magazine, Weinstein's representative "unequivocally denied" allegations of non-consensual sex; he also said he had never retaliated against a woman for declining his advances. The same day, the New York Times followed up its story with more allegations as well.

In a statement to the Times on Oct. 5, Weinstein said, "I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it." Later that day, one of his attorneys announced that Weinstein planned to sue the newspaper for the story, which the attorney called "defamatory."

Rumors about Weinstein's inappropriate behavior with women had been circulating for years; actor Kate Winslet — who did not identify as a victim of his alleged misconduct — suggested as much in a statement she gave to Variety on Monday (Oct. 9): "I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumors, maybe we have all been naïve."

Since the original report, numerous women have come forward with similar allegations against the movie mogul. On Saturday, the Washington Post published an article on Weinstein's rise in the entertainment industry, and included allegations from three additional women, including actor and director Linas Esco and actor and comedian Chelsea Skidmore. The paper also reported that a third woman, identified as a crew member on Weinstein's film Playing for Keeps, told producer Alan Brewer during production in 1984 that Weinstein had forced himself on her. Brewer told The Post about the incident, and another crew member who heard the woman's account also corroborated the allegations.

According to former employees, many people had heard stories about the producer. Mark Gill, the former president of Miramax Los Angeles, told the New York Times, “If a female executive was asked to go to a meeting solo, she and a colleague would generally double up” to avoid being alone with Weinstein. And in the New York Times story, Ashley Judd said, “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.” In 2015, Judd had told Variety — without naming Weinstein at the time — about an incident in the '90s when a studio mogul had put pressure on her to perform sexual activities.

Alexander Koerner / Getty Images

Paz de la Huerta

De la Huerta said that in 2010, Weinstein offered her a ride home to her apartment, and then asked to come inside for a drink.

"Things got very uncomfortable very fast," she told Vanity Fair in an article published Nov. 2. De la Huerta said he pushed her onto the bed and forced himself on her.

"It wasn’t consensual . . . It happened very quickly. . . . He stuck himself inside me. . . . When he was done he said he’d be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock," she said.

Later that year, De la Huerta said she had been out drinking when she arrived at her building and found Weinstein in the lobby; she said she was frightened, and he convinced her to let him into her residence, where she said he raped her again. She recalled him telling her he'd cast her in a play as she was lying on her bed "feeling sick."

De la Huerta told a journalist her story in 2014, but she asked the journalist not to publish anything. “I didn’t want to say something that they were gonna make it look like I’m just some slutty girl,” she said.

De la Huerta has been interviewed by police. Sgt. Brendan Ryan of the NYPD said in a statement, “We are aware of the sexual assault complaints. We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on the case. The investigation is ongoing.”

Weinstein's spokesperson said in response, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.”

Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Ashley Matthau

Ashley Matthau and her husband Charles Matthau

Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Ashley Matthau told the New York Times that she met Weinstein in 2004 while she was performing Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights in Puerto Rico.

Matthau, a dancer who was then engaged to her now-husband Charles Matthau, said she refused Weinstein's persistent requests to come to his hotel room for a private meeting after he saw her on the sets.

Matthau told the Times that none of the production members offered to help her after she told them she was afraid that Weinstein was being pushy during the crew's lunch break.

Upon returning to the sets, Matthau recalled that Weinstein told her get into a car, saying, "Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen. We're just going to discuss future projects."

In his hotel room, Weinstein told her that she should consider sleeping with him as he had helped launch the careers of high-profile actresses who had done the same, Matthau said.

When she refused, Matthau said Weinstein pushed her onto the bed and fondled her breasts. He then stripped, straddled, and masturbated on top of her, despite her repeatedly asking him to stop and telling him she was engaged, Matthau told the Times.

"It's just a little cuddling. It's not a problem," Matthau said Weinstein told her. "It's not like we're having sex."

After the encounter, Matthau hired a lawyer from Gloria Allred's firm and met with Weinstein and his lawyer, Daniel M. Petrocelli, who warned her that he would tarnish her reputation by citing her attendance at Playboy Mansion parties.

Matthau said she agreed to a more than $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in exchange for a legally binding promise not to speak out about the allegations.

She said that she was now willing to break the clause despite the threat of legal damages.

"I want to do my part to help bring this to light so it doesn’t happen with other people in Hollywood or anywhere else," she told the Times.

Cynthia Burr, an actress who appeared in films like Scarface and Lethal Weapon, told the New York Times that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him in the hallway of a building in New York City in the late 1970s.

Burr, who was then an actress in her early 20s, was told by her manager to meet Weinstein, who she described as a "real up-and-comer" in his mid-20s.

She said that after Weinstein greeted her in the lobby of an old building, he tried to kiss her in the elevator. He then unzipped his fly and forced her to perform oral sex on him, she alleged.

"It was just him and me alone,” Burr told the Times. "I was fearful I didn't have the wherewithal to get away."

Burr said that she felt ashamed after the experience and thought that no one would believe her.

"I’m really sad for everybody, but I’m really glad it’s out in the open," Burr told the Times. "I finally felt like I had a voice."

Hope Exiner d'Amore told the New York Times that Weinstein raped her in his hotel room in the late 70s while she was an employee at his concert promotion company.

Weinstein invited her to come to New York City to meet people in the film industry, according to Exiner d'Amore. She said that he told her they would have to share a room due to a mistake in the hotel reservations.

She agreed, thinking it was harmless. But at night, Weinstein — who was naked — slipped into her bed, she said.

"I told him no," Exiner D'Amore told the Times. "I kept pushing him away. He just wouldn’t listen. He just forced himself on me."

She alleged that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex and intercourse on her.

Exiner D'Amore added that after declining Weinstein's offers to take her out and give her credit cards for shopping, she was fired within three or four weeks of the trip.

Lacy Dorn told the New York Times that she was first introduced to Weinstein at a New York Film Festival party for The Artist in 2011.

Dorn, who was 22 at the time, then met Weinstein a few weeks later at a Halloween party at Rose Bar in Gramercy Park Hotel. He asked her for her email and told her he wanted to discuss her career over lunch, she said.

That night, he sent her a a blank email with the subject line: Great meeting you," she told the Times.

Dorn said that when she said goodbye to Weinstein while leaving the party, he grabbed her between the legs, touched her buttocks and her crotch through her clothing while her back was turned to him.

"I was so naïve, I didn’t say anything," Dorn told the Times. "And he didn’t say anything either. I just got out of the party as fast as possible."

Dorn said that she never heard from Weinstein again and that many of her friends shrugged off her encounter with him as a "rite of passage" in the entertainment industry.

Annabella Sciorra

Sciorra told the New Yorker she met Weinstein in the early '90s, when she was an up-and-coming actor. He agreed to produce a romantic comedy written by a friend of hers, "The Night We Never Met," and cast her in the lead role.

At one of the various Miramax events she attended, Weinstein offered to give her a ride home, she told the New Yorker. Not long after dropping her off, she heard a knock on her door. She opened it a crack, she told the New Yorker, and Weinstein pushed his way in.

He began backing her toward the bedroom, she said, ignoring her orders to leave.

“He shoved me onto the bed, and he got on top of me,” she told the New Yorker. “I kicked and I yelled.”

He raped her, she said, and also attempted to perform oral sex on her before leaving.

Sciorra said she felt she couldn't tell her family, the police, or even a therapist what happened to her. She didn't work in the industry for three years, she said, which she believes was the result of Weinstein's influence.

Years later, she continued to be harassed by Weinstein, she said. He stood outside her hotel room in 1997 in his underwear with a bottle of baby oil, she said, and he didn't leave until she called hotel staff to her room.

Sciorra initially did not speak to journalist Ronan Farrow as he was pursuing a story about accusations against Weinstein. A friend, the actor Rosie Perez, encouraged her to come forward as part of her healing process.

"I’m an intensely private person, and this is the most un-private thing you can do,” Sciorra told the New Yorker.

Ben Gabbe / Getty Images

Daryl Hannah

The Splash and Kill Bill Vol. 1 actor told the New Yorker she was sexually harassed by Weinstein — who then retaliated against her when she refused his advances.

In one instance, Weinstein pounded on her hotel room door late at night, she told the New Yorker. She fled to another room. Several years later, while promoting Kill Bill, Weinstein used a key and burst into her hotel room, Hannah told the New Yorker. He demanded she attend a party downstairs — but when she went down, no one else was there, she said.

As she asked him what was happening, he asked if her breasts were real and if he could feel them, she told the New Yorker.

“I said ‘No, you can’t!’ And then he said, ‘At least flash me, then.’ And I said, ‘Fuck off, Harvey.’ ”

Hannah said the repercussions were instant: The Miramax plane left without her, and her flights, hotel, and hair-and-makeup artists for the upcoming Cannes festival were canceled.

Hannah said she told people what happened, as well as the retaliation she had faced.

"I think that it doesn’t matter if you’re a well-known actress, it doesn’t matter if you’re twenty or if you’re forty, it doesn’t matter if you report or if you don’t, because we are not believed," she told the New Yorker. "We are more than not believed—we are berated and criticized and blamed.”

Brent N. Clarke / AP

Natassia Malthe

Actress Natassia Malthe spoke out on Oct. 25, alongside her lawyer Gloria Allred, accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in a London hotel room and propositioning a threesome.

Malthe said she met Weinstein while she was in London for the 2008 BAFTA awards. She says she woke up in her hotel room one night to the movie producer pounding on her door and yelling at her to let him in.

She said she was mortified at the time, but opened the door so as to not make a scene at the hotel. Malthe said Weinstein walked inside, took off his pants, and sat on the bed.

Malthe recounted that her mind was racing, wondering what to do. She said she panicked as he's a large man and she weighed less than 100 pounds at the time.

She said he then proceeded to pull out his penis and masturbate, then push himself on her and sexually assault her. Malthe said it was not consensual and that he did not wear a condom.

"I laid still and closed my eyes and I just wanted it to end," she said. "I played dead."

Once back in Los Angeles, Malthe said Weinstein called her one day to check in about a role she was preparing for. She said Weinstein set up a meeting at his hotel and assured her his assistant would be present during the meeting.

Malthe said when she arrived to his hotel suite, Weinstein was in a bathrobe and there was another woman in the room, who Malthe said started giving him a blowjob in front of her.

She said Weinstein then proposed the three of them engage in a threesome, which Malthe declined.

Malthe concluded her statement by saying she has experienced harassment in Hollywood before and that "things need to change" in the industry.

Screenshot

Dominique Huett

Actor Dominique Huett said she met Weinstein at the bar of a Beverly Hills hotel in 2010 to discuss potential roles in television and film.

On Tuesday, her lawyers filed a $5 million lawsuit against The Weinstein Company, arguing that the company, including Weinstein's brother Bob and other members of the board, knew about the film executive's repeated acts of sexual misconduct, specifically using his power to coerce and force young actresses to engage in sexual acts with him.

In the 2010 incident, Huett said Weinstein invited her to his room to continue discussing her career. Once in the hotel room, Weinstein excused himself to go the bathroom, and returned wearing only a bathrobe. She said he then demanded that Huett give him a massage and “would not take no for an answer.” Huett said he subsequently insisted he be allowed to give her oral sex. Despite her saying “no,” Weinstein persisted and removed her clothes. After a few minutes, Weinstein masturbated in front of Huett until he reached orgasm, according to the complaint.

Jamie Mccarthy / Getty Images

Mimi Haleyi

Mimi Haleyi spoke out on Oct. 24 alongside attorney Gloria Allred, alleging Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her at his New York City apartment in 2006.

Haleyi said she first met Weinstein in 2004 at the London premiere of The Aviator. She said she ran into him again at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, where he allegedly invited her to his hotel room to discuss a potential production job with his company in New York.

"After a few minutes of greetings and normal conversation Harvey suddenly asked me if I'd give him a massage," Haleyi said. "I said, 'No, sorry, I'm not a masseuse,' and suggested he contact hotel reception with his request."

Haleyi said he repeatedly asked her for massages, so she left the meeting feeling "completely humiliated and stupid for having been excited about meeting him."

Haleyi said that after this encounter Weinstein helped her secure a production assistant job on the set of a television show he was working on, adding that she never saw him until the show finished filming. Allred refused to name the show.

She said she then ran into him again at the Weinstein Company offices in Tribeca, where he told her was going to Paris for fashion shows and invited her along. Haleyi said she refused his offer, saying it "seemed like an invitation of a romantic nature."

"He didn't like that answer," Haleyi said. "He kept messaging and calling me and even showed up at the apartment where I was staying in the East Village twice in one day, and literally physically forced himself through the door, pleading with me to come with him to Paris."

Haleyi said she made it clear to him that she would not be traveling with him. Once Weinstein returned from the trip, Haleyi said he got in touch and invited her to his home. She agreed to go, wanting to maintain a good working relationship with him.

Not long after she arrived to the apartment, she said Weinstein "was all over me." She refused his sexual advances, even telling him she was on her period and that nothing was going to happen.

She said Weinstein wouldn't take no for an answer and "backed" her into a room that was not well lit but looked like a child's bedroom with drawings on the walls.

She said Weinstein pinned her down on the bed and physically overpowered her.

"He then orally forced himself on me while I was on my period," she said. "He even pulled out my tampon. I was mortified. I was in disbelief and disgusted." In response to Hayeli's press conference with her attorney, Weinstein's spokesperson reiterated that the producer "unequivocally denied" any allegations of non-consensual sex.

Haleyi's attorney said her client did not go to the police at the time and it remained unclear if she would go to the NYPD now.

Haleyi said Weinstein then rolled over onto his back and said to her, "Don't you feel we're so much closer to each other now?"

"I replied, 'No,'" she said.

Mary Ann Georgantopoulos

Brit Marling

On Oct. 23, Marling wrote in the Atlantic that, in 2014, she went to a meeting with Weinstein, when she had been deemed — as she put it — “fresh meat.” She said the meeting was initially set for a hotel bar, but a female assistant met her there and escorted her up to Weinstein’s hotel room. She said the assistant left them alone in the room and Weinstein asked her if she wanted a massage or to shower together. She said she “was able to gather myself together” and leave the room.

“I’m telling this story because in the heat surrounding these brave admissions, it’s important to think about the economics of consent. Weinstein was a gatekeeper who could give actresses a career that would sustain their lives and the livelihood of their families,” she wrote in the essay. As an actor who was also a writer, she said she knew that even if Weinstein blacklisted her, she could make her own work, which gave her more power in the exchange.

On Oct. 23, the Financial Times published an interview with Perkins in which she described her time working as Weinstein’s assistant in the '90s. The first time he sexually harassed her, she said, he appeared in a room wearing only underwear, asked her to massage him, and then asked if he could massage her. She declined. She said this type of behavior was the norm with him: He often walked around naked and asked her to be present while he was bathing, or, if she had to wake him up in the morning, he would try to pull her into bed with him. She said she left Miramax and sought advice from an attorney after her colleague told her Weinstein had sexually assaulted her at the Venice Film Festival in September of 1998. (Through a representative, Weinstein denied ever having non-consensual sex with any woman.)

Perkins said she sought legal help in 1998 not to get a monetary settlement but “to stop him by exposing his behavior” and “to create safeguards to protect future employees.” Some safeguards were written into the non-disclosure agreement she signed: According to the contract, Miramax was to implement a stronger system for reporting harassment, and Weinstein was supposed to go to therapy. According to the NDA, if a complaint made within two years of the contract resulted in a settlement of at least £35,000 or six months’ salary, the incident either had to be reported to Miramax’s parent company Disney, or Weinstein had to be fired.

Perkins was mentioned in the New York Times’ Oct. 5 article detailing decades of sexual harassment allegations against the producer, but she had signed such a contract barring her from telling her story. She told the Financial Times, “I want to publicly break my non-disclosure agreement.” She said she was doing so to expose the exploitative nature of such agreements. “Unless somebody does this there won’t be a debate about how egregious these agreements are and the amount of duress that victims are put under. My entire world fell in because I thought the law was there to protect those who abided by it. I discovered that it had nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with money and power.”

Lupita Nyong'o

In an op-ed for the New York Times published on Oct. 19, Lupita Nyong'o revealed she first met Weinstein in 2011 at an awards ceremony in Berlin while she was studying at the Yale School of Drama. As an aspiring actress, she decided to exchange information with him "in the hopes that I would be of consideration for one of his projects," she said.

Though there was no inappropriate behavior in their first meeting, Nyong'o said Weinstein soon invited her to attend a screening of a film at his home in Westport, Connecticut, not far from Yale's New Haven campus. Nyong'o recalled Weinstein sent a car for her and had the driver take her to a restaurant in Westport where he met her for lunch. She said he insisted she have a vodka and diet soda, instead of the juice she requested. “Get her what I tell you to get her. I’m the one paying the bill,” she said he told the waiter. She told him she wouldn't drink the beverage and eventually she said he gave up and called her "stubborn."

At his home, Nyong'o said he introduced her to his staff and young children before they went to the screening room. About 15 minutes in, Nyong'o wrote, "Harvey came for me, saying he wanted to show me something." She said she wanted to finish the movie, but he insisted, she recalled, and led her to his bedroom. According to Nyong'o, Weinstein announced that he "wanted to give me a massage." She recalled: "I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times. ... He agreed to this and lay on the bed. I began to massage his back to buy myself time." Then, Nyong'o said, Weinstein announced he wanted to take off his pants. When she asked him not to, she said he got up and did so anyway. She walked toward the door and left with his driver back to New Haven. At the time, Nyong'o rationalized the incident because "I was in an educational program where I was giving massages to my classmates and colleagues every day," she said.

She decided not to put herself in a situation to be alone with Weinstein again, but invited him to a production she was in at Yale. He was unable to attend, and, Nyong'o wrote, he said he would make it up to her. He eventually invited her to see a Broadway staged reading of Finding Neverland and told her she could bring friends. After the performance, the actor said Weinstein invited her and her friends to a restaurant for a big dinner. She said he sat her next to him and her male friends at a different table, but nothing else happened. "I left feeling that perhaps he had learned my boundaries and was going to respect them," she wrote.

A couple of months later, Nyong'o said she received an email from Weinstein to go to another screening and for drinks in TriBeCa. Shortly after he arrived, he said, “Let’s cut to the chase. I have a private room upstairs where we can have the rest of our meal.” She said she told him she "preferred to eat in the restaurant"; in turn, "he told me not to be so naïve. If I wanted to be an actress, then I had to be willing to do this sort of thing. He said he had dated Famous Actress X and Y and look where that had gotten them." She said she declined and he told her, "We are done here. You can leave."

When she saw Weinstein again at the premiere party for 12 Years a Slave at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2013, she said he admitted that "he had treated me so badly in the past. He was ashamed of his actions and he promised to respect me moving forward." After she won an Oscar for her performance in 12 Years a Slave, she received an offer for a Weinstein Company movie, which she turned down. She said Weinstein tried to persuade her at Cannes 2014 to join the project, but she resisted. "My survival plan was to avoid Harvey and men like him at all costs, and I did not know that I had allies in this," she wrote, noting she hasn't dealt with any similar situations in the business since. "I speak up to make certain that this is not the kind of misconduct that deserves a second chance. I speak up to contribute to the end of the conspiracy of silence," she wrote.

Weinstein later denied Nyong'o's accusations.

"Mr. Weinstein has a different recollection of the events, but believes Lupita is a brilliant actress and a major force for the industry. Last year, she sent a personal invitation to Mr. Weinstein to see her in her Broadway show Eclipsed," a spokesperson for Weinstein told Entertainment Weekly.

A spokesperson for Nyong'o told Entertainment Weekly she had "no further comment."

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Heather Kerr

At a press conference with celebrity attorney Gloria Allred on Oct. 20, former actor Heather Kerr recalled being summoned to a private meeting with Weinstein in 1989. "He asked me if I was good," said Kerr, who appeared on The Facts of Life and Mama’s Family. "I started to tell him about my training and acting experience and he said, ‘No. I need to know if you’re good.’" She said he kept repeating the word and then "he unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis," according to Kerr. She said he then grabbed her hand and "forced it onto his penis and held it there." Kerr said Weinstein told her: "This is how things work in Hollywood, and all actresses who'd made it did it this way." She decided to quit acting soon thereafter.

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

Katya Mtsitouridze

The head of Russia's international film promotion body, Roskino, told The Hollywood Reporter that in 2004, she agreed to meet Weinstein in a public place in Venice. After she arrived, she said she was greeted by his assistant, who directed her up to Weinstein's private room. "The assistant said that he would be joining us, so I went up," she said. She recalled that the assistant quickly left the two of them alone in the room. "I was frozen into immobility like a statue, because a well-known producer with whom I've come to discuss modern Russian writers, was in a bathrobe," she said. She remembered that Weinstein began talking about massages; Mtsitouridze said she bolted out the door when a server delivered champagne to the room.

When they later met again at an industry event, she recalled Weinstein telling her not to say anything and to "be a smart girl."

Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Sean Young

In an interview on the Dudley and Bob with Matt Show that aired Oct. 19, Young said that she "personally experienced" Weinstein "pulling his you-know-what out of his pants." She was working on a Miramax film at the time — 1992’s Love Crimes. She said, "My basic response was, 'You know, Harvey, I really don't think you should be pulling that thing out, it's not very pretty.'" She recalled that she never met with the producer again. She said she understood why women had not told their stories publicly for so long: “The minute you actually stand up for yourself in Hollywood, you’re the crazy one.”

Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images

Lena Headey

On Oct. 17, Game of Thrones star Lena Headey tweeted about her experiences with Weinstein. She tweeted that she was at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 promoting The Brothers Grimm, which was distributed by Miramax, and Weinstein asked her to take a walk by the water. He "made some sort of suggestive comment, gesture," she tweeted. "I just laughed it off ... I remember thinking, It's got to be a joke." (Headey also pointed out that during production on The Brothers Grimm, she was "subjected to endless bullying" by director Terry Gilliam.) She said she met with Weinstein in LA years later at his hotel, and because of her reaction in Venice, she "believed that he respected [her] boundary" and would keep things professional. After talking about films over breakfast, Headey said that Weinstein then led her to his room under the pretext of giving her a script. "My whole body went into high alert," she wrote. She said she told him "nothing is going to happen" between them. After that, she said Weinstein was "silent" and "furious," and walked her out of the hotel "by grabbing and holding tightly to the back of [her] arm." Headey said Weinstein told her, "Don't tell anyone about this, not your manager, not your agent." After that, she tweeted, she got in the car he paid for and cried.

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images

Marisa Coughlan

In an article published by the Hollywood Reporter on Oct. 18, Marisa Coughlan said that in 1999, when she was 25, she met Weinstein after acting in two Miramax projects. She said that, one night, she ran into him at a restaurant and when she went to pay the bill for herself and her friends, he had already paid it. After she sent a thank-you note, he called her to set up a meeting in Los Angeles at the the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel; when she arrived, everyone else “left the suite like the place was on fire,” she said. After some talk of business and potential roles, talk turned to unprofessional matters, she said. "He told me that he has a lot of 'special friends' and they give each other massages." She said it was “transactional,” that he was suggesting sexual favors in exchange for career opportunities. “He wanted to barter sex for movie roles,” she said.

At a later meeting, she said he tried to pressure her into accompanying him to his hotel room after they met in a public place; she said she declined.

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images

Erika Rosenbaum told CBC’s The Current that she first met Weinstein when she was in her twenties, at a party shortly after she moved to Los Angeles. She agreed to meet with him in a hotel room, thinking he could help her fledgling acting career, she said. When his assistant left the room, she recalled, “He put an arm around me and started, as if he was a boyfriend all of a sudden, started trying to be intimate with me. ... I just remember that feeling of having to fight off an invader, but I had to do it in a friendly way because I was terrified to anger this man.” Rosenbaum said she massaged his shoulders as a compromise “in order to get out.” She added, “I thought that something I had done had provoked this behaviour in him and so I was deeply guilty for whatever I had done to allow this to happen.”

Rosenbaum, who is now 37, said a few years later she met with him again, after meeting with Weinstein’s female casting agent. She said he made advances again in his office, and she kept her voice quiet so that his employees wouldn’t know what was happening. “I'm like covering for him even as he's doing it,” she said. At a later meeting in a hotel suite, she said he tried to make her watch him shower, and then grabbed her. “He holds me by the back of the neck and faces me to the mirror and very quietly tells me that he just wants to look at me and he starts to masturbate standing behind me,” she said. She hoped the stories becoming public would help others.

Giovanna Rei

Rei, an Italian actor, said Weinstein appeared nude at a meeting in a Rome hotel room in 1998, presented her with massage lotion, and suggested a massage.

Ernesto Ruscio / Getty Images

Larissa Gomes

In a Los Angeles Times report from Oct. 17, Gomes said she met Weinstein when she was 21 and working on the Miramax film Get Over It in Toronto. The producer, she said, introduced himself and asked her what she thought about the production. “It was intoxicating, it was validating,” she said about talking to him. She recalled that Weinstein asked her for her number through his assistant, and they had a breakfast meeting at his hotel. After that meeting, which she described as "professional," she said he asked to meet her again in his hotel room, but in the evening.

She said at that second hotel meeting, he asked her to follow him into his bedroom, and then he asked her to lie on the bed with him and take off her shirt. She said that when she left the bedroom, he followed her and massaged her shoulders and neck as she protested. “He would not stop. He just kept pushing his hands close to my chest forcefully until I finally was able to get up and away from him,” she said. She recalled that he told her Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd had been in the same position once, and “Look at them now.” She said she started to leave, and he grabbed her and tried to kiss her. She turned her head away. “I was so incredibly discouraged and disillusioned,” she said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of the industry any more if this is what it was.”

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Vu Thu Phuong

Actor Vu Thu Phuong wrote in Vietnamese in a Facebook post on Oct. 13 about a meeting she had with Weinstein after she acted in the 2010 film Shanghai, which was distributed by The Weinstein Company. According to the publication Saigoneer, Phuong said Weinstein appeared at their meeting in a towel and asked her if she’d be willing to be in sex scenes in future films, offering to “teach” her. She said she declined, though she recalled feeling horrified and wondering whether she was in danger of sexual violence. She quickly returned home. “I shelved my ‘American dream’ as well as the contract with Weinstein’s film company,” she wrote.

In an article published by Buffalo News on Oct. 15, Paula Wachowiak described an encounter she had with Weinstein in 1980 while working as a production assistant on The Burning, a slasher film Weinstein has both a story by and production credit on. She said she was asked by her supervisor to deliver some checks to Weinstein in his hotel room so he could sign them; when Weinstein answered the door, she said, he was in a towel, which he quickly dropped. After talking with her about the checks, he asked her for a massage, she said; she declined. “He tried to encourage me by telling me what a fantastic opportunity it was for me to be part of this project," Wachowiak told Buffalo News. "I told him that I was happy to be part of the project but I would not touch him. He finally gave up and signed all the checks." Later in the production, she recalled Weinstein asking her if seeing him naked was "the highlight of your internship."

Minka Kelly

Kelly posted on Instagram on Oct. 13 that the day after meeting Weinstein for the first time, he asked her to go to a meeting in his hotel room; the actor declined, and met him in a hotel restaurant, where she said he quickly dismissed the assistant who was with them. She said he offered her, among other things, “a lavish life filled with trips around the world” but only “IF I would be his girlfriend.” She wrote, “All I knew was not to offend this very powerful man and to get out of the situation as quickly as possible,” so she told him she wanted to keep their relationship professional. She recalled him telling her not to tell anyone about their conversation. She told her agent, who was not surprised. “I'm sorry for obliging his orders to be complicit in protecting his behavior, which he obviously knew was wrong or he wouldn’t have asked me not to tell anyone in the first place,” she said. “I am appalled for all the women being told these occurrences are in any way their fault.”

Jerod Harris

Mia Kirshner

Kirshner wrote in the Globe and Mail Oct. 13 that she had an “ordeal in a hotel room where [Weinstein] attempted to treat me like chattel that could be purchased with the promise of work in exchange for being his disposable orifice.” But, the actor wrote, she did not want to “waste this precious space on Harvey Weinstein,” declining to give him “the privilege of more ink” and instead focusing on larger systemic issues in the industry, particularly focusing on what she saw as Hollywood unions failing to protect their members. “SAG and ACTRA do not have holistic policies and procedures should their members file complaints,” she said. “That needs to change now. And change does not mean publishing another well-meaning brochure or e-mail blast about anti-harassment policies.” She urged the union to enforce an end to meetings in hotel rooms, and called for major reform of the way investigations of complaints are handled — she called the current practices ineffectual. She also urged the union to track the careers of complainants and monitor whether they'd been blacklisted, and to institute better mental healthcare policies. “Speaking out is powerful, and cathartic but it won't change the status quo,” she said. “Please don't release a statement about how the union supports its own. It's not enough. Protect us. Change this ineffective system.”

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Trish Goff

The model told the New York Times she met Weinstein at a cocktail party in 2003 when she was 25. Not long after, her agent received a call from his office inviting her to lunch.

Goff told the Times she was nervous because she had heard Weinstein's reputation, but she took the meeting because she feared losing work if she offended him.

The lunch took place in a private dining room, and Goff told the Times that Weinstein began asking if she had a boyfriend and if it was an open relationship. She kept declining his advances, she said, both verbal and when he began touching her leg.

"When we finally stood up to go, he really started groping me, grabbing my breasts, grabbing my face and trying to kiss me," she told the Times. "I kept saying, ‘Please stop, please stop,' but he didn’t until I managed to get back into the public space."

Bennett Raglin / Getty Images

Melissa Sagemiller

Sagemiller told the Huffington Post that in the summer of 2000 when she was 24, Weinstein had his assistant invite her to his hotel room to discuss a script. At the time, she was working on a movie he was producing — Get Over It. When the actor arrived in his hotel room, she recalled he was wearing a robe, and asked her to massage him, which she declined. She said that she told him she was going to leave, and then he told her she couldn’t leave without kissing him. Sagemiller recalled that he blocked the door and named other actors he’d had relations with, and said submitting to his advances would be good for her career. Finally, she kissed him, and she said he held her head and forced the kiss, after which he let her exit the room.

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Angie Everhart

On Oct. 13, Everhart told the KLOS morning show Frosty, Heidi & Frank that at the Venice Film Festival, she was sleeping in her bed on a boat when she awoke to Weinstein standing over her. The actor and model said that as he was blocking the door, he started masturbating and ejaculated on the carpet, and then told her she was a “a really nice girl” and that she shouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. She said she did tell the other people on the boat but no one did anything to help hold him accountable; Everhart herself said she had never told her story publicly before: “If I had said something earlier … I probably wouldn’t have worked ever again.” She told one of the hosts, “Heidi, I was listening to you say you should just yell and scream and just try to get out of a situation, but sometimes you can’t always do that, it just doesn’t work. ... I was just compelled to say it to you because I was like, you can’t always tell people!”

Michael Buckner / Getty Images

Bindi, a massage therapist, told ABC’s 20/20 that in 2010, she was booked for a session in Weinstein’s suite at the Montage Hotel. In the interview that aired Oct. 13, she said Weinstein told her she should write a book about what he called her “artform” of massage, and after the session, he began texting her about a book deal. “Who would not be flattered?” Bindi said. But at their second appointment, she said, he stopped the massage, stood up, and asked her about the size of his penis. She said he followed her into the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and began to masturbate. She recalled that she expressed her discomfort and told him to stop, and then “he grabbed me and started groping on my chest, and I pushed him away. … What do you do in a situation like that?” Weinstein’s employees followed up with her in emails — reviewed by ABC — about a book deal, which she interpreted as a form of payment for her silence. She did not pursue the book deal, and she said she was scared to pursue legal action against him.

Williams told 20/20 that she met Weinstein in 1990. She said after a dinner party, he sent her a car to take her to what the then 20-year-old model thought was a party; when she arrived at the Hollywood Hills home, she recalled, there was no party, just her and Weinstein. “He immediately starts massaging my neck as I walk in so I know right away that this … is going to be uncomfortable.” Williams said she excused herself for a cigarette, came back inside and found Weinstein with a bottle of champagne. She said he quickly exposed himself, and she fled the house on foot. She had not told her story publicly before because of “deep shame,” but when “Gwyneth [Paltrow] said something in the press about it, and she had experiences as well. And all of a sudden I just felt it lifted.”

Kate Beckinsale

On Thursday, Oct. 12, Beckinsale posted on her Instagram that when she was 17, she received a call to meet Harvey Weinstein at his hotel. "When I arrived, reception told me to go to his room. He opened the door in his bathrobe," she wrote. "After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning, I left, uneasy but unscathed." A few years later, Beckinsale said Weinstein "asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting. I realized he couldn't remember if he had assaulted me or not." She went on to say she declined to work with Weinstein professionally many times over the course of her career, which sometimes led to him "screaming at me," "calling me a cunt," and "making threats." Beckinsale also said a male friend of hers warned another young female actor about Weinstein. "He received a phone call the next day saying he would never work in another Miramax film," Beckinsale wrote. "The girl was already sleeping with Harvey and had told him that my friend had warned her off."

Theo Wargo / Getty Images

Tara Subkoff

Subkoff told Variety that Weinstein sexually harassed her in the '90s when she was up for a part in one of his movies. At a party the night she was offered the role, Subkoff said Weinstein grabbed her to sit on his lap. "I could feel that he had an erection," she told Variety. Subkoff said Weinstein asked her to come outside with him "and other things I don’t want to share, but it was implied that if I did not comply with doing what he asked me to do that I would not get the role that I had already been informally offered." She said she laughed in his face and left the party. Afterward, Subkoff said she got the reputation of being "too difficult to work with." "It became impossible for me to get work as an actress after this," she told Variety. She said years later, in 2015, Weinstein badmouthed her directorial debut #Horror. "That refusing to comply with one powerful man’s sexual advances could not only ruin my first career as an actress, but almost twenty years later also had the power to affect my first and only feature film to get distribution is so important to show how the abuse of power by the patriarchy is affecting all female artists everywhere," Subkoff said.

Jamie Mccarthy

Florence Darel

French actor Darel told People that Weinstein propositioned her in the mid-’90s, when she was 26. She found the incident shocking. In the Oct. 12 article, she said, “What happened to me may not be illegal but it was inappropriate. Very inappropriate.” Weinstein’s company had just bought a film she starred in, and Weinstein, she had told Le Parisien, invited her to what she thought was a business meeting in his hotel room. At the meeting, she said he pressured her to submit to his advances for the sake of her career. She declined and left, and mostly kept her story to herself. She told People, “What could I do ? Could I go to the police and say, ‘This disgusting man made me an indecent proposal in his hotel room at The Ritz?’ They would have laughed at me.” She added, “Why if everyone knew it, is it only coming out now?”

Boris Horvat / AFP / Getty Images

Dix told the Guardian that when she was a 22-year-old actor, Weinstein invited her to his hotel room to watch some film footage. Once in the room, she said, he asked her for a massage. In the Oct. 12 article, she said Weinstein pushed her onto the bed and tugged at her clothes. She recalled that she ran to the bathroom and locked the door, and when she decided to try to escape the hotel room, she opened the door and found him masturbating. Months later, he called her and apologized, she recalled, asking her if he could do something for her; she declined, feeling retraumatized by the call. “You think you go into the film business because you think it is this free-thinking, liberal-minded industry, but actually it could not be more opposite. It is as antiquated, as sexist and rigged as they come.” The interaction with Weinstein was, she said, “the single most damaging thing that’s happened in my life.”

Claire Forlani

In a tweet posted Oct. 12, Forlani wrote that she was coming forward after reading Mira Sorvino’s account of coming forward in Time. The actor was approached by Ronan Farrow for the story he ultimately published in the New Yorker, but she decided not to participate. She said she met with Weinstein twice at the Peninsula hotel, and “[n]othing happened” because “I escaped five times.” She describes ducking and diving to avoid Weinstein’s advances; he had suggested a massage, she said. Forlani recalled that during several dinners with him when she was in her mid-twenties, he told her about the other female actors he’d slept with. She had been “scared of the repercussions” of coming forward about abuse: “I was punished when I was brave,” she said. Right now, she said she feels “moved that these brave women who came forward are creating alchemy of all bad, brutal ugliness. … I feel excited,” she wrote, “that this could be a thing of the past.”

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

Léa Seydoux

In an essay published by The Guardian Oct. 11, Seydoux wrote she met Weinstein at a fashion show and he invited her to drinks; she already knew, she said, that it would not be about work and he had “other intentions.” She said they met in the lobby of his hotel and his female assistant was with them. After a while, he invited her up to his room for a drink. “It was hard to say no because he’s so powerful,” she said. “All the girls are scared of him.” The assistant came upstairs with them, but soon left, and when Seydoux and Weinstein were alone in his room, he jumped on her and tried to kiss her, she said — she had to physically fight him off. She wrote that she’s seen Weinstein many times since, and she’s seen him openly pursuing other women and talking about all the famous women he’s slept with. “Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything,” she said. “It’s unbelievable that he’s been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career.”

Gabriel Bouys / AFP / Getty Images

Cara Delevigne

The actor, who appears in the upcoming Weinstein Company movie Tulip Fever, released a statement on Oct. 11 to HuffPost's Yashar Ali about two incidents between her and Weinstein. According to Delevigne, Weinstein called her and asked whether she’d had sex with the women she was “seen out with.” She said it was an “uncomfortable” call for her, and he told her that if she was gay or openly in a relationship with a woman, she would not succeed as an actor. Later, she went to a meeting with him and a director in a hotel lobby. Weinstein, she said, began to brag about actors he’d slept with and asked her to go to his room at the hotel. She said she went to his room feeling “powerless” and “hoping that I was wrong about the situation.” In his hotel room, she was relieved to see another woman, but then Weinstein told them to kiss, she said. She nervously began to sing, and then said she had to leave; Weinstein, she said, walked her to the door and tried to kiss her on the mouth. She left, and still played the character in the film they’d met about. “I felt awful that I did the movie,” she said. "I was also terrified that this sort of thing had happened to so many women I know but no one had said anything because of fear."

Tristan Fewings / Getty Images

Gwyneth Paltrow

Paltrow told the New York Times in an article published on Oct. 10 that, after hiring her for the lead in Emma, Weinstein invited the actor, then 22, to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for what she believed was a work meeting. She said he placed his hand on her leg and suggested they move to the bedroom for massages. She declined, she said, but described herself as “petrified” by the experience. She said Weinstein later called and “screamed” at her because she’d told her boyfriend at the time, Brad Pitt, and Pitt had confronted the producer. “I was expected to keep the secret,” she said. She worked with him for years after that and felt pressured to publicly praise him; she told the Times that she was coming forward to support the women who had already done so, hoping others would feel less alone. “We’re at a point in time when women need to send a clear message that this is over.”

Mat Hayward / Getty Images

Angelina Jolie

Jolie did not go into specifics in an article published by the New York Times on Oct. 10, but she said, “I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did.” She declined his unwanted advances in a hotel room in the late 1990s, she said. “This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”

Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images

Heather Graham

Graham wrote a piece for Variety recalling an instance in the early 2000s when Weinstein called her into his office and told her he wanted to put her in one of his movies. During the conversation, Graham said he also mentioned that he had an agreement with his wife that he could sleep with other women when he was out of town. "There was no explicit mention that to star in one of those films I had to sleep with him, but the subtext was there," she wrote. Graham said she had asked to bring a fellow actor friend to a follow-up meeting at Weinstein's hotel because of her "discomfort with the situation," but when her friend canceled, Graham said she called Weinstein to postpone. She alleged he tried to tell her that her friend was there, but, she wrote, "I knew he was lying, so I politely and apologetically reiterated that I could no longer come by." Graham noted she was never hired by Weinstein and she commended Judd. "While I still do feel guilty for not speaking up all those years ago, I’m glad for this moment of reckoning," she wrote.

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

Louisette Geiss

Louisette Geiss, a former actor and script writer spoke out Oct. 10, alleging that Weinstein begged her to watch him masturbate following a 2008 meeting during the Sundance Film Festival.

In a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred, Geiss said Weinstein invited her to a meeting at the restaurant of the hotel they were both staying at during the festival. When they arrived, they were asked to leave because the restaurant was closing down for the night. Weinstein offered to reconvene in his office, which was next to his hotel room, Geiss said, adding that she hesitated at first because she had heard rumors about him. She told him she'd go to his office if he promised not to touch her. "He laughed it off," Geiss said.

Once in his office, Geiss was pitching her film, she said, and Weinstein excused himself to go to the bathroom. When he returned, she alleged he was wearing nothing but a robe, open in the front. "He told me to keep talking about my film and that he was going to get into the hot tub," she said. When she finished her pitch, he asked her to watch him masturbate, Geiss alleged. "My heart was racing and I was very scared," she said, adding that she told him she was leaving. Geiss said Weinstein proceeded to get out of the tub and grab her by the forearm, pleading with her to watch him masturbate, promising to greenlight her script if she did. Geiss credited this incident as the reason she left the movie industry. "I never ever thought I would have a chance to stand up for myself against Harvey Weinstein," she said.

Courtesy of Gloria Allred

Roberts told the New York Times that in 1984, when she was 20, she met Weinstein when she was waiting tables in New York. He invited her to his hotel room for what she thought was an audition; she said he was nude in the tub when she arrived, and he pressured her to remove her clothes, too. Roberts, who is now a professor, said she declined his advances and left; she felt manipulated, she said.

Katherine Kendall

In 1993, when she was a 23-year-old actor, Weinstein took Kendall to a screening and then asked her to accompany him to his apartment, she told the New York Times. She said they had a pleasant conversation for an hour, during which time she thought, “He’s taking me seriously,” but then he excused himself and returned in a robe, asking for a massage and telling her “everybody” did it. When she declined, she said, he left the room and returned fully naked, chasing her around the room and physically blocking her from exiting.

Mat Szwajkos / Getty Images

Judith Godrèche

Godrèche told the New York Times that Weinstein invited her to breakfast during the 1996 Cannes Film Festival to discuss her film, which his company was distributing. A female Miramax executive joined them for breakfast, she recalled, and then Weinstein asked her to go up to his suite at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc to see the view and further discuss her film. Upstairs, she said, he asked her for a massage and said it was common practice in America; after she refused, she said, “The next thing I know, he’s pressing against me and pulling off my sweater.” She recalled that she later contacted the female Miramax executive, who advised her to say nothing. Godrèche felt pressure to maintain a friendly relationship with Weinstein for the sake of her career.

Andrew Toth / Getty Images

Dawn Dunning

In 2003, when Dunning was 24, she met Weinstein through her job serving at a nightclub, she told the New York Times. He offered to help her career, and at one point his assistant arranged a meal at his hotel in New York, she said. Dunning was directed up to Weinstein’s suite, where she said she found him in a bathrobe. She said he told her he would give her roles in his movies on the condition that she have a threesome with him. When she laughed, Weinstein became angry, she said. She recalled that he told her, “You’ll never make it in this business,” and, “This is how the business works.”

Andy Kropa / Getty Images

According to the New Yorker, Weinstein approached aspiring actor Lucia Evans, then Stoller, at a club in New York in 2004, shortly before she began her senior year of college. She told the New Yorker that "she had heard rumors about Weinstein [but] she let him have her number." Evans said she initially declined his late-night calls asking to meet, but agreed to a daytime meeting at the Miramax office with Weinstein and a female casting executive. After allegedly telling her she'd “be great in Project Runway” if she lost weight, Weinstein “forced [her] to perform oral sex on him.” She said she objected, but "Weinstein took his penis out of his pants and pulled her head down onto it," according to the New Yorker. Afterwards, Evans said she lived with guilt for not fighting Weinstein harder. "My roommates told me to go to a therapist because they thought I was going to kill myself," she told the New Yorker.

Asia Argento

Argento told the New Yorker that in 1997, one of Weinstein's producers invited her to a Miramax party on the French Riviera, but when she arrived, only Weinstein was there. According to the Italian actor, Weinstein left the room and returned wearing a bathrobe and holding a bottle of lotion, asking for a massage. Argento told the New Yorker she "reluctantly agreed to give Weinstein a massage, he pulled her skirt up, forced her legs apart, and performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop.” He did not, Argento said.

She said Weinstein "kept contacting" her after the incident and sent expensive gifts to her for a few months thereafter. In 1999, Argento worked with Weinstein when his company, Miramax, distributed B. Monkey, a movie she appeared in. Argento "eventually yielded to Weinstein’s further advances and even grew close to him," according to the New Yorker, and had a consensual sexual relationship with him over the course of the next five years. Argento told the New Yorker that she "believed that Weinstein would ruin her career if she didn't comply." Years later, when she was a single mother, Weinstein offered to pay for a nanny and Argento said she felt "obliged" to have sex with him.

A few years after the incident, Argento wrote and directed a movie called Scarlet Diva, which included a scene in which a producer corners a young woman and asks her for a massage in a hotel room. “People would ask me about him because of the scene in the movie,” Argento told the New Yorker. She said Weinstein recognized himself in the character, told her it was "very funny" and said he was "sorry for whatever happened.”

According to the New Yorker, Weinstein asked Argento to meet with a private investigator and give testimony on his behalf once he'd heard that the New York Times and New Yorker stories were close to publishing.

Andreas Rentz / Getty Images

Mira Sorvino

Mira Sorvino, who starred in several of Weinstein’s films, said Weinstein "sexually harassed her and tried to pressure her into a physical relationship while they worked together," according to the New Yorker. In 1995 when she was with Weinstein promoting Mighty Aphrodite at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sorvino said she found herself in a hotel with the producer. "He started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around," she said. She said she warded him off and left the room.

Sorvino told the New Yorker she struggled for years about whether or not to come forward, "partly because she was aware that it was mild compared to the experiences of other women" and also because Weinstein was so instrumental in her success. She also said she remains close friends with Weinstein's brother and business partner Bob Weinstein, whom she never told about Weinstein's behavior. She did tell a female employee at Miramax about the harassment; by doing that, and turning down Harvey Weinstein's advances, she said she felt that those actions hurt her career. "There may have been other factors, but I definitely felt iced out and that my rejection of Harvey had something to do with it," Sorvino told the New Yorker.

Randy Shropshire / Getty Images

In Dec. 2014, 25-year-old Nestor started working as a temporary front desk assistant at the Weinstein Company. As Nestor told the New Yorker, she was told on her first day that she was Weinstein's "type," and he referred to her as "the pretty girl.” Nestor said Weinstein asked how old she was, made her write down her telephone number, and told her to meet him for drinks that night.

She said she made up an excuse, and suggested an early-morning coffee the next day instead, assuming he would say no. Nestor said Weinstein told her to meet him at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills, where he was staying. After being warned about Weinstein’s reputation, Nestor told the New Yorker she intentionally “dressed very frumpy.”

She called their meeting the “most excruciating and uncomfortable hour of my life.” She said he offered her career help, and then boasted about his sexual experiences, including those with famous actresses. “He said, ‘You know, we could have a lot of fun,’” Nestor recalled. “I could put you in my London office, and you could work there and you could be my girlfriend.” After she declined, Nestor recalled Weinstein saying, “Oh, the girls always say ‘no.’ You know, ‘No, no.’ And then they have a beer or two and then they’re throwing themselves at me.” She said Weinstein told her “that he’d never had to do anything like Bill Cosby.”

According to Nestor, she refused his advances at least a dozen times. “‘No’ did not mean ‘no’ to him,” she told the New Yorker. “I felt trapped ... I was very afraid of him. And I knew how well connected he was. And how if I pissed him off then I could never have a career in that industry.” Nestor said her male colleague who referred her reported the incident to HR and she talked to company officials about it, but didn’t pursue it further. Nestor completed her temporary placement and then, she told the New Yorker, she "decided not to go into entertainment because of this incident.”

Emma de Caunes

After the French actor met Weinstein in 2010 at a party at the Cannes Film Festival, he asked her to a lunch meeting at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, according to the New Yorker. In the meeting, de Caunes said Weinstein said that he was going to be producing a film adaptation of a book that would be shooting in France; de Caunes, who was in her early thirties at the time, said he told her that he couldn’t remember the title, but said he had the book in his room. She said she had to leave, but after Weinstein begged her to go with him to get the book, she agreed.

She took a phone call when they got up to his hotel room, and during that time, Weinstein went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and emerged naked with an erection. According to de Caunes, he "demanded that she lie on the bed and told her that many other women had done so before her. ... I was very petrified,” de Caunes said. “I could feel that the more I was freaking out, the more he was excited.”

De Caunes said she left and Weinstein called "relentlessly" over the next few hours, offering her gifts and repeating that nothing had happened. She told the New Yorker that she’s heard similar stories through the years. “I know that everybody — I mean everybody — in Hollywood knows that it’s happening,” de Caunes said. “So many people are involved and see what’s happening. But everyone’s too scared to say anything.”

Francois Lo Presti / AFP / Getty Images

Rosanna Arquette

Arquette told the New Yorker that one evening in the early '90s, she was supposed to meet Weinstein for dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel to pick up the script for a new film. She said she was told to meet Weinstein in his room and he opened the door wearing a bathrobe, saying his neck was sore and that he needed a message. After Arquette said she told him that she could recommend a good masseuse, she said he then grabbed her hand and put it on his neck. She told the New Yorker he yanked her hand away, but Weinstein grabbed it again and pulled it toward his erect penis. Arquette said she told Weinstein, “I will never do that," which Weinstein, she said, told her was a huge mistake. She said he named women whose careers he claimed he advanced after they slept with him. “I’ll never be that girl,” Arquette recalled telling him. Then, she left. She believes her career suffered as a result. “He made things very difficult for me for years,” Arquette told the New Yorker.

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images

The actor told the New Yorker she met Weinstein at a Golden Globes party in Jan. 2011, after which he invited her to a business meeting at the Peninsula. According to Barth, he told her to come up to his room, where he, according to the New Yorker, "alternated between offering to cast her in a film and demanding a naked massage in bed." When she moved toward the door to leave, Barth said Weinstein lashed out and told her she needed to lose weight “to compete with Mila Kunis." She alleged he then promised her a meeting with one of his female executives, which she said "seemed to be purely a formality."

Zoë Brock

Model Zoë Brock published an essay on Medium on Oct. 7 in which she said Weinstein separated her from her friends and took her back to his hotel room during the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. As she recalled, he went into the bathroom and emerged naked, asking the then-23-year-old model for a massage. When she declined, she said he offered to give her a massage. Brock said she then ran into the bathroom, and chastised Weinstein through the locked door until he put his clothes back on. When she emerged from the bathroom, she recalled he was wearing a robe and "whimpered" that she had rejected him because he was fat. She said he offered to assist her career and sent her roses the next day with a thank-you note.

She wrote, "I wish I had thought there was something, anything, I could do to stop him from hurting women all these years."

Ambra Battilana Gutierrez

Guitierrez met Weinstein at a reception for a show Weinstein was producing at Radio City Music Hall in March 2015. She was 22 at the time. According to the New Yorker, he reached out to her agency to set up a "business meeting" and when she met with Weinstein at his office, she said he asked if her breasts were real. Then, she said he grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hands up her skirt.

She said she told him to stop and he finally relented; he told her his assistant would give her tickets to see Finding Neverland on Broadway, which he was producing, and that he would meet her at the show that evening. Gutierrez never went to the show and instead went to the NYPD to report the assault. Gutierrez filed a complaint saying that Weinstein had groped her during a meeting in New York. (The model had previously spoken out to help expose sexual abuse committed by the entourage of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.)

According to the New Yorker, Weinstein called while she was sitting with investigators from the Special Victims Division to tell her he was annoyed that she didn't meet him. Gutierrez and investigators devised a plan that she would agree to see Finding Neverland the following day and meet with Weinstein while wearing a wire to record their conversation. In the recording, which can be heard in part via the New Yorker, Gutierrez meets Weinstein at a hotel bar. When he asks her to join him in his hotel room while he showers, she says no, though does eventually agree to his demand to go upstairs. When she refuses to go into his room, she also asks him directly why he groped her. “Oh, please, I’m sorry, just come on in,” Weinstein says. “I’m used to that. Come on. Please. ... I won’t do it again." Eventually, Weinstein finally agrees to let her leave.

Details of Guitierrez's past complicated the situation, the Manhattan District Attorney told the New Yorker, and they decided not to file charges — though one police source told the New Yorker that they had "more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein" for sexual abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of three months in jail.

In a statement at the time, the DA's office said: “This case was taken seriously from the outset, with a thorough investigation conducted by our Sex Crimes Unit. After analyzing the available evidence, including multiple interviews with both parties, a criminal charge is not supported.” According to the New Yorker, in settling with Weinstein, Gutierrez signed a "highly restrictive" nondisclosure agreement, including "an affidavit stating that the acts Weinstein admits to in the recording never happened."

The New York DA's office released the following statement after the New Yorker article was published: “If we could have prosecuted Harvey Weinstein for the conduct that occurred in 2015, we would have. Mr. Weinstein’s pattern of mistreating women, as recounted in recent reports, is disgraceful and shocks the conscience."

Ashley Judd

Judd told the New York Times that in the 1990s, when she was in her twenties, Weinstein met with her in his room at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel wearing only a bathrobe; the actor said she thought she had agreed to a business meeting, but Weinstein asked her for a massage and, after she declined, asked her to watch him shower.

“I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask,” she told the paper, and explaining that she felt “trapped.” There was immense pressure to be friendly with him because of the cachet of Miramax, the film distribution and production company Weinstein ran at the time, she said.

Khalil Mazraawi / AFP / Getty Images

Madden, a former employee of Weinstein's, told the New York Times that, starting in 1991, Weinstein would ask her to massage him in hotel rooms. At one point, she said, she locked herself in his hotel bathroom, crying. She described his behavior as "manipulative," and said, “You constantly question yourself — am I the one who is the problem?”

Rose McGowan

The New York Times reported that McGowan, who was then 23, reached a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein after an incident in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival. The actor and director, who declined to comment on the newspaper's story, has seemingly alluded to Weinstein in the past and very recently. In October 2016, she tweeted, "my ex sold our movie to my rapist for distribution," adding to a hashtag that chronicled reasons women don't report assaults.

Craig Barritt / Getty Images

Jennifer Siebel Newsom

In an essay published on the Huffington Post Oct. 6, documentary filmmaker and actor Newsom wrote about her own experience with Weinstein. She did not go into detail about what happened, but she said what had happened to her was “very similar” to other previously published accounts in the New York Times. She wrote, “I was naive, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances ― work invitations with a friend late-night at The Toronto Film Festival, and later an invitation to meet with him about a role in The Peninsula Hotel, where staff were present and then all of a sudden disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extremely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend.” She said the other women who had openly told their stories had “inspired [her] to publicly speak the truth.”

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Campbell, writing for the Sunday Times Oct. 8, said Weinstein offered her a job as a script reader in 1995; shortly after, he invited her to what she thought was a business meeting at his room at the Savoy. Once she was in his hotel room, he went to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and asked her to take a bath with him, saying that she could "soap" him. She declined, angry, and left the room, she said.

Romola Garai

In an article published by The Guardian Oct. 9, the actor said she had a meeting with Weinstein in his hotel room at the Savoy when she was 18. Weinstein was wearing only a bathrobe; she told The Guardian, "I felt violated by it," and said Weinstein would put women in “humiliating situations” to demonstrate his own power. “At the time I understood myself to be a commodity and that my value in the industry rested almost exclusively on the way I looked and I didn’t really think of myself to be any more than that,” she said, explaining that it had never occurred to her to tell her story publicly until now. People in the industry, she thought, would be “shocked I even thought it was an issue.”

Ben A. Pruchnie / Getty Images

Godbold wrote in an essay published Oct. 9 that Weinstein had taken her on an “office tour that became an occasion to trap me in an empty meeting room” where he begged her for a massage with “his hands on my shoulders as I attempted to beat a retreat.” She tried to exit the situation, she said, “while not wanting to alienate the most powerful man in Hollywood.” In her essay, she wondered about the women who might have submitted to Weinstein, and considered the shame and blame that “would follow you for submitting to a powerful man because he made that your best or only option at the time.”

Lina Esco

Actor and director Lina Esco told the Washington Post that she first met Weinstein at a dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, where she believed she would be talking to him about film. Instead, she said Weinstein told her during dinner: "I think we should see a movie in the theater, like back in the day, and we should kiss." She told the paper that she brushed him off by saying she didn't date older men, but that Weinstein insisted, and then "tried to insinuate that everything would be easier for me if I went along."

Richard Shotwell / AP

Chelsea Skidmore

Actor and comedian Chelsea Skidmore told the Washington Post that she encountered Weinstein in 2013, when she met him for tea at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills after a producer suggested it to her. Two of Weinstein's assistants were initially at the meeting, Skidmore said, but later left. Weinstein then told her, "We're going upstairs," she said.

Skidmore told the Post that in Weinstein's suite, the film mogul asked for a massage and, after she refused, began to masturbate in front of her. When he finished, he asked her to write a pilot for him. Skidmore said she had three more encounters with him, all under the pretense of work. Twice, she said, he exposed himself and another time he tried to coerce her to get physical with another woman. "He had just a very forceful way of going about things," she said. "He forces himself on you, talks you into it and doesn't leave you with an option."

In a final meeting in 2016, Skidmore said she tried to keep the conversation focused on business until he walked out of the room and then returned naked asking, "Can you help me out?" He allegedly forced her to stand next to him in front of a mirror while he masturbated. She said she then ran out of the room crying.

Lysette Anthony

British actor Lysette Anthony accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her 15 years ago, and reported the incident to London's Metropolitan Police last week, her friend Charlotte Metcalf, a documentary filmmaker, wrote in The Sunday Times.

In one incident, Metcalf alleges that Anthony told her Weinsten had grabbed her at his New York home while he was half-dressed. In another, she said Weinsten went to Anthony's home. When Anthony answered the door in her dressing gown, Metcalf writes, Weinstein allegedly pushed her inside and rammed her against a coat rack while reaching inside her gown. Anthony said she tried to push him off her, but was not able to. "He came over my leg like a dog and left," she told Metcalf.

Mike Marsland / Mike Marsland / WireImage

Former Brazilian model Juliana De Paula told the Los Angeles Times that she was first introduced to Weinstein at a party in Manhattan in 2007, when she and a group of other models were invited to continue the evening at the film executive's SoHo loft.

In the elevator up to his apartment, De Paula said, Weinstein began groping the women's breasts and forcing them to kiss one another, "like putting both heads together,” De Paula told the paper.

When the group later migrated to a bedroom, De Paula said she fled to the kitchen, but was followed by a nude Weinstein, who backed off only after she brandished a broken wine glass.

“He looked at me and he started to laugh,” she told the paper. “I was shocked. I was completely in disbelief.”

De Paula's roommate at the time confirmed to the LA Times that he remembered her recounting the story after it occurred. Through a spokesperson, Weinstein dismissed the former model's allegations as a "fabrication," according to the report.

Lauren Holly

Lauren Holly, known for her roles in Dumb and Dumber and NCIS, said she was asked to a business meeting with Weinstein in a hotel room in the 1990s when she was in her 30s.

Then, she said, he left and returned in a bathrobe. He continued to talk business as he dropped the robe, used the toilet, and began to shower. But everything changed as he walked out of the shower naked and began to come toward her, Holly said.

"I wanted to flee," Holly told The Social. "I was scared. He told me I looked stressed. He thought maybe I could use a massage, maybe I could give him a massage."

Holly said shed tried to talk her way out of the situation, and Weinstein began to get angry. He told her that leaving would be bad for her career, she said.

She pushed him away and ran out of the room.

"From that moment, I didn't quite make as many movies, I began to go into television," she said. "I'm not sure why. I have my suspicions."

Nicholas Hunt / Getty Images

In an interview with Variety, Panagrosso said that she was groped by Weinstein in a swimming pool, and later in a cabin on a private yacht, while in Cannes for the film festival there in 2003.

After first meeting Weinstein at a dinner, where Panagrosso said the film executive made lewd comments and advancements, the model said that Weinstein approached her in a hotel pool and "started to grope me under water." Panagrosso said that though she spurned Weinstein's advances in the pool, and rejected a dinner invitation, he later entered the cabin where she was staying on a private yacht.

“He pushed me on the bed, tried groping me and I tried to play it off because I thought he’s not going to do anything because my friends are on the boat. But it got very frustrating to get him out. It was like bargaining," she told Variety. "When I said ‘no’ he said ‘maybe if I can’t massage you, will you massage me?’ When I said no to that he said ‘come on why are you being so difficult, all the [other] women are ok with it. I don’t see what you are making such a fuss about. Let me see your breasts at least.’”

A spokesperson for Weinstein has rejected Panagrosso's account, telling the Los Angeles Times that her “recollection of events differs from that of Mr. Weinstein."

Amber Anderson

In an Instagram post on Oct. 16, Anderson, a British model and actress, offered an account of an alleged private meeting she had with Weinstein in 2013, when she was 20 years old.

"Once we were alone the mood changed," Anderson wrote. "He behaved inappropriately and propositioned a 'personal' relationship to further my career whilst bragging about other actresses he had 'helped' in a similar way. He told me not to tell anyone I was alone with him, told me if I did it might affect my 'opportunities.' He tried to take my hand and put it in his lap which is when I managed to leave the room."

Eamonn M. Mccormack / Getty Images

Sarah Ann Masse

In the aftermath of the New York Times and New Yorker reports about Weinstein's alleged pattern of sexual assault and misconduct, Masse came forward with her own account of an alleged encounter she had with an underwear-clad Weinstein when she was working as a nanny in New York City in 2008.

In an interview with Variety, Masse said that the nanny agency she worked for informed her of an opportunity to work for the Weinstein family, caring for the film executive's three older children. After a series of pre-interviews, she said, she was told Weinstein wanted to meet her for an interview at his home in Connecticut. When she arrived, she said, Weinstein opened the door in his boxers, and proceeded to conduct the entire interview in his underwear.

When the interview was finished, she said, Weinstein — still wearing only his boxers — gave her an extended embrace and told Masse that he loved her. She did not get the nanny job, she said, and was told that it was because she was an actor.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct-allegationsMon, 09 Oct 2017 21:05:16 -0400Lupita Nyong'o, Lena Headey, Cara Delevingne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, and more have come forward.arianelangenonadultHarvey Weinstein was fired from his position as co-chair of the Weinstein Company days after the New York Times published an <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">article</a> that detailed decades of sexual harassment allegations against the celebrated executive.
Then, on Oct. 10, the New Yorker published a <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">story</a> that included multiple allegations of rape and additional alleged instances of sexual harassment — in a statement to the magazine, Weinstein's representative "unequivocally denied" allegations of non-consensual sex; he also said he had never retaliated against a woman for declining his advances. The same day, the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?mtrref=undefined">New York Times</a> followed up its story with more allegations as well.
In a statement to the Times on Oct. 5, Weinstein <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/us/statement-from-harvey-weinstein.html">said</a>, "I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it." Later that day, one of his attorneys <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-new-york-times?utm_term=.ybY2qEBVp#.ghodLNJxv">announced</a> that Weinstein planned to sue the newspaper for the story, which the attorney called "defamatory."
Rumors about Weinstein's inappropriate behavior with women had been circulating for years; actor Kate Winslet — who did not identify as a victim of his alleged misconduct — suggested as much in a statement she gave to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/kate-winslet-harvey-weinstein-allegations-sexual-harassment-scandal-1202584733/">Variety</a> on Monday (Oct. 9): "I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumors, maybe we have all been naïve."
Since the original report, numerous women have come forward with similar allegations against the movie mogul. On Saturday, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/violence-threats-begging-harvey-weinsteins-30-year-pattern-of-abuse-in-hollywood/2017/10/14/2638b1fc-aeab-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_weinstein501pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;utm_term=.096e2f2e91fb">the Washington Post</a> published an article on Weinstein's rise in the entertainment industry, and included allegations from three additional women, including actor and director Linas Esco and actor and comedian Chelsea Skidmore. The paper also reported that a third woman, identified as a crew member on Weinstein's film <i>Playing for Keeps</i>, told producer Alan Brewer during production in 1984 that Weinstein had forced himself on her. Brewer told The Post about the incident, and another crew member who heard the woman's account also corroborated the allegations.
According to former employees, many people had heard stories about the producer. Mark Gill, the former president of Miramax Los Angeles, told the New York Times, “If a female executive was asked to go to a meeting solo, she and a colleague would generally double up” to avoid being alone with Weinstein. And in the New York Times story, Ashley Judd said, “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.” In 2015, Judd had told Variety — without naming Weinstein at the time — about an <a rel="nofollow" href="http://variety.com/2015/film/news/ashley-judd-sexual-harassment-studio-mogul-shower-1201610666/">incident in the '90s</a> when a studio mogul had put pressure on her to perform sexual activities.nonadultnonadultDe la Huerta said that in 2010, Weinstein offered her a ride home to her apartment, and then asked to come inside for a drink.
"Things got very uncomfortable very fast," she told <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/paz-de-la-huerta-harvey-weinstein-allegations">Vanity Fair</a> in an article published Nov. 2. De la Huerta said he pushed her onto the bed and forced himself on her.
"It wasn’t consensual . . . It happened very quickly. . . . He stuck himself inside me. . . . When he was done he said he’d be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock," she said.
Later that year, De la Huerta said she had been out drinking when she arrived at her building and found Weinstein in the lobby; she said she was frightened, and he convinced her to let him into her residence, where she said he raped her again. She recalled him telling her he'd cast her in a play as she was lying on her bed "feeling sick."
De la Huerta told a journalist her story in 2014, but she asked the journalist not to publish anything. “I didn’t want to say something that they were gonna make it look like I’m just some slutty girl,” she said.
De la Huerta has been interviewed by police. Sgt. Brendan Ryan of the NYPD said in a statement, “We are aware of the sexual assault complaints. We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on the case. The investigation is ongoing.”
Weinstein's spokesperson said in response, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.”nonadult<small>Ashley Matthau and her husband Charles Matthau</small>nonadultAshley Matthau <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/harvey-weinstein-sexual-assault-allegations.html">told</a> the New York Times that she met Weinstein in 2004 while she was performing <i>Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights</i> in Puerto Rico.
Matthau, a dancer who was then engaged to her now-husband Charles Matthau, said she refused Weinstein's persistent requests to come to his hotel room for a private meeting after he saw her on the sets.
Matthau told the Times that none of the production members offered to help her after she told them she was afraid that Weinstein was being pushy during the crew's lunch break.
Upon returning to the sets, Matthau recalled that Weinstein told her get into a car, saying, "Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen. We're just going to discuss future projects."
In his hotel room, Weinstein told her that she should consider sleeping with him as he had helped launch the careers of high-profile actresses who had done the same, Matthau said.
When she refused, Matthau said Weinstein pushed her onto the bed and fondled her breasts. He then stripped, straddled, and masturbated on top of her, despite her repeatedly asking him to stop and telling him she was engaged, Matthau told the Times.
"It's just a little cuddling. It's not a problem," Matthau said Weinstein told her. "It's not like we're having sex."
After the encounter, Matthau hired a lawyer from Gloria Allred's firm and met with Weinstein and his lawyer, Daniel M. Petrocelli, who warned her that he would tarnish her reputation by citing her attendance at Playboy Mansion parties.
Matthau said she agreed to a more than $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in exchange for a legally binding promise not to speak out about the allegations.
She said that she was now willing to break the clause despite the threat of legal damages.
"I want to do my part to help bring this to light so it doesn’t happen with other people in Hollywood or anywhere else," she told the Times.nonadultCynthia Burr, an actress who appeared in films like <i>Scarface</i> and <i>Lethal Weapon</i>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/harvey-weinstein-sexual-assault-allegations.html">told</a> the New York Times that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him in the hallway of a building in New York City in the late 1970s.
Burr, who was then an actress in her early 20s, was told by her manager to meet Weinstein, who she described as a "real up-and-comer" in his mid-20s.
She said that after Weinstein greeted her in the lobby of an old building, he tried to kiss her in the elevator. He then unzipped his fly and forced her to perform oral sex on him, she alleged.
"It was just him and me alone,” Burr told the Times. "I was fearful I didn't have the wherewithal to get away."
Burr said that she felt ashamed after the experience and thought that no one would believe her.
"I’m really sad for everybody, but I’m really glad it’s out in the open," Burr told the Times. "I finally felt like I had a voice."nonadultHope Exiner d'Amore <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/harvey-weinstein-sexual-assault-allegations.html">told</a> the New York Times that Weinstein raped her in his hotel room in the late 70s while she was an employee at his concert promotion company.
Weinstein invited her to come to New York City to meet people in the film industry, according to Exiner d'Amore. She said that he told her they would have to share a room due to a mistake in the hotel reservations.
She agreed, thinking it was harmless. But at night, Weinstein — who was naked — slipped into her bed, she said.
"I told him no," Exiner D'Amore told the Times. "I kept pushing him away. He just wouldn’t listen. He just forced himself on me."
She alleged that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex and intercourse on her.
Exiner D'Amore added that after declining Weinstein's offers to take her out and give her credit cards for shopping, she was fired within three or four weeks of the trip.
"This has haunted me my entire life,” Exiner d’Amore, now 62, told the Times.nonadultLacy Dorn <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/harvey-weinstein-sexual-assault-allegations.html">told</a> the New York Times that she was first introduced to Weinstein at a New York Film Festival party for <i>The Artist</i> in 2011.
Dorn, who was 22 at the time, then met Weinstein a few weeks later at a Halloween party at Rose Bar in Gramercy Park Hotel. He asked her for her email and told her he wanted to discuss her career over lunch, she said.
That night, he sent her a a blank email with the subject line: Great meeting you," she told the Times.
Dorn said that when she said goodbye to Weinstein while leaving the party, he grabbed her between the legs, touched her buttocks and her crotch through her clothing while her back was turned to him.
"I was so naïve, I didn’t say anything," Dorn told the Times. "And he didn’t say anything either. I just got out of the party as fast as possible."
Dorn said that she never heard from Weinstein again and that many of her friends shrugged off her encounter with him as a "rite of passage" in the entertainment industry.nonadultSciorra <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/weighing-the-costs-of-speaking-out-about-harvey-weinstein">told the New Yorker</a> she met Weinstein in the early '90s, when she was an up-and-coming actor. He agreed to produce a romantic comedy written by a friend of hers, "The Night We Never Met," and cast her in the lead role.
At one of the various Miramax events she attended, Weinstein offered to give her a ride home, she told the New Yorker. Not long after dropping her off, she heard a knock on her door. She opened it a crack, she told the New Yorker, and Weinstein pushed his way in.
He began backing her toward the bedroom, she said, ignoring her orders to leave.
“He shoved me onto the bed, and he got on top of me,” she told the New Yorker. “I kicked and I yelled.”
He raped her, she said, and also attempted to perform oral sex on her before leaving.
Sciorra said she felt she couldn't tell her family, the police, or even a therapist what happened to her. She didn't work in the industry for three years, she said, which she believes was the result of Weinstein's influence.
Years later, she continued to be harassed by Weinstein, she said. He stood outside her hotel room in 1997 in his underwear with a bottle of baby oil, she said, and he didn't leave until she called hotel staff to her room.
Sciorra initially did not speak to journalist Ronan Farrow as he was pursuing a story about accusations against Weinstein. A friend, the actor Rosie Perez, encouraged her to come forward as part of her healing process.
"I’m an intensely private person, and this is the most un-private thing you can do,” Sciorra told the New Yorker.nonadultThe <i>Splash</i> and <i>Kill Bill Vol. 1</i> actor <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/weighing-the-costs-of-speaking-out-about-harvey-weinstein">told the New Yorker</a> she was sexually harassed by Weinstein — who then retaliated against her when she refused his advances.
In one instance, Weinstein pounded on her hotel room door late at night, she told the New Yorker. She fled to another room. Several years later, while promoting Kill Bill, Weinstein used a key and burst into her hotel room, Hannah told the New Yorker. He demanded she attend a party downstairs — but when she went down, no one else was there, she said.
As she asked him what was happening, he asked if her breasts were real and if he could feel them, she told the New Yorker.
“I said ‘No, you can’t!’ And then he said, ‘At least flash me, then.’ And I said, ‘Fuck off, Harvey.’ ”
Hannah said the repercussions were instant: The Miramax plane left without her, and her flights, hotel, and hair-and-makeup artists for the upcoming Cannes festival were canceled.
Hannah said she told people what happened, as well as the retaliation she had faced.
"I think that it doesn’t matter if you’re a well-known actress, it doesn’t matter if you’re twenty or if you’re forty, it doesn’t matter if you report or if you don’t, because we are not believed," she told the New Yorker. "We are more than not believed—we are berated and criticized and blamed.”nonadultActress Natassia Malthe spoke out on Oct. 25, alongside her lawyer Gloria Allred, accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in a London hotel room and propositioning a threesome.
Malthe said she met Weinstein while she was in London for the 2008 BAFTA awards. She says she woke up in her hotel room one night to the movie producer pounding on her door and yelling at her to let him in.
She said she was mortified at the time, but opened the door so as to not make a scene at the hotel. Malthe said Weinstein walked inside, took off his pants, and sat on the bed.
Malthe recounted that her mind was racing, wondering what to do. She said she panicked as he's a large man and she weighed less than 100 pounds at the time.
She said he then proceeded to pull out his penis and masturbate, then push himself on her and sexually assault her. Malthe said it was not consensual and that he did not wear a condom.
"I laid still and closed my eyes and I just wanted it to end," she said. "I played dead."
Once back in Los Angeles, Malthe said Weinstein called her one day to check in about a role she was preparing for. She said Weinstein set up a meeting at his hotel and assured her his assistant would be present during the meeting.
Malthe said when she arrived to his hotel suite, Weinstein was in a bathrobe and there was another woman in the room, who Malthe said started giving him a blowjob in front of her.
She said Weinstein then proposed the three of them engage in a threesome, which Malthe declined.
Malthe concluded her statement by saying she has experienced harassment in Hollywood before and that "things need to change" in the industry.nonadultActor Dominique Huett said she met Weinstein at the bar of a Beverly Hills hotel in 2010 to discuss potential roles in television and film.
On Tuesday, her lawyers filed a $5 million lawsuit against The Weinstein Company, arguing that the company, including Weinstein's brother Bob and other members of the board, knew about the film executive's repeated acts of sexual misconduct, specifically using his power to coerce and force young actresses to engage in sexual acts with him.
In the 2010 incident, Huett said Weinstein invited her to his room to continue discussing her career. Once in the hotel room, Weinstein excused himself to go the bathroom, and returned wearing only a bathrobe. She said he then demanded that Huett give him a massage and “would not take no for an answer.” Huett said he subsequently insisted he be allowed to give her oral sex. Despite her saying “no,” Weinstein persisted and removed her clothes. After a few minutes, Weinstein masturbated in front of Huett until he reached orgasm, according to the complaint.nonadultMimi Haleyi spoke out on Oct. 24 alongside attorney Gloria Allred, alleging Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her at his New York City apartment in 2006.
Haleyi said she first met Weinstein in 2004 at the London premiere of <i>The Aviator</i>. She said she ran into him again at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, where he allegedly invited her to his hotel room to discuss a potential production job with his company in New York.
"After a few minutes of greetings and normal conversation Harvey suddenly asked me if I'd give him a massage," Haleyi said. "I said, 'No, sorry, I'm not a masseuse,' and suggested he contact hotel reception with his request."
Haleyi said he repeatedly asked her for massages, so she left the meeting feeling "completely humiliated and stupid for having been excited about meeting him."
Haleyi said that after this encounter Weinstein helped her secure a production assistant job on the set of a television show he was working on, adding that she never saw him until the show finished filming. Allred refused to name the show.
She said she then ran into him again at the Weinstein Company offices in Tribeca, where he told her was going to Paris for fashion shows and invited her along. Haleyi said she refused his offer, saying it "seemed like an invitation of a romantic nature."
"He didn't like that answer," Haleyi said. "He kept messaging and calling me and even showed up at the apartment where I was staying in the East Village twice in one day, and literally physically forced himself through the door, pleading with me to come with him to Paris."
Haleyi said she made it clear to him that she would not be traveling with him. Once Weinstein returned from the trip, Haleyi said he got in touch and invited her to his home. She agreed to go, wanting to maintain a good working relationship with him.
Not long after she arrived to the apartment, she said Weinstein "was all over me." She refused his sexual advances, even telling him she was on her period and that nothing was going to happen.
She said Weinstein wouldn't take no for an answer and "backed" her into a room that was not well lit but looked like a child's bedroom with drawings on the walls.
She said Weinstein pinned her down on the bed and physically overpowered her.
"He then orally forced himself on me while I was on my period," she said. "He even pulled out my tampon. I was mortified. I was in disbelief and disgusted." In response to Hayeli's press conference with her attorney, Weinstein's spokesperson reiterated that the producer "unequivocally denied" any allegations of non-consensual sex.
Haleyi's attorney said her client did not go to the police at the time and it remained unclear if she would go to the NYPD now.
Haleyi said Weinstein then rolled over onto his back and said to her, "Don't you feel we're so much closer to each other now?"
"I replied, 'No,'" she said.nonadultOn Oct. 23, Marling wrote in the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/harvey-weinstein-and-the-economics-of-consent/543618/">Atlantic</a> that, in 2014, she went to a meeting with Weinstein, when she had been deemed — as she put it — “fresh meat.” She said the meeting was initially set for a hotel bar, but a female assistant met her there and escorted her up to Weinstein’s hotel room. She said the assistant left them alone in the room and Weinstein asked her if she wanted a massage or to shower together. She said she “was able to gather myself together” and leave the room.
“I’m telling this story because in the heat surrounding these brave admissions, it’s important to think about the economics of consent. Weinstein was a gatekeeper who could give actresses a career that would sustain their lives and the livelihood of their families,” she wrote in the essay. As an actor who was also a writer, she said she knew that even if Weinstein blacklisted her, she could make her own work, which gave her more power in the exchange.
“[C]onsent is a function of power,” she said. “You have to have a modicum of power to give it. In many cases women do not have that power because their livelihood is in jeopardy and because they are the gender that is oppressed by a daily, invisible war waged against all that is feminine.” She added that a critique of systemic imbalances was being overlooked in the criticism of Weinstein and other allegedly predatory individual men. “It’s not <i>these bad men</i>. Or <i>that dirty industry</i>. It’s <i>this inhumane economic system</i> of which we are all a part.”nonadultOn Oct. 23, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1dc8a8ae-b7e0-11e7-8c12-5661783e5589?mhq5j=e6">Financial Times</a> published an interview with Perkins in which she described her time working as Weinstein’s assistant in the '90s. The first time he sexually harassed her, she said, he appeared in a room wearing only underwear, asked her to massage him, and then asked if he could massage her. She declined. She said this type of behavior was the norm with him: He often walked around naked and asked her to be present while he was bathing, or, if she had to wake him up in the morning, he would try to pull her into bed with him. She said she left Miramax and sought advice from an attorney after her colleague told her Weinstein had sexually assaulted her at the Venice Film Festival in September of 1998. (Through a representative, Weinstein denied ever having non-consensual sex with any woman.)
Perkins said she sought legal help in 1998 not to get a monetary settlement but “to stop him by exposing his behavior” and “to create safeguards to protect future employees.” Some safeguards were written into the non-disclosure agreement she signed: According to the contract, Miramax was to implement a stronger system for reporting harassment, and Weinstein was supposed to go to therapy. According to the NDA, if a complaint made within two years of the contract resulted in a settlement of at least £35,000 or six months’ salary, the incident either had to be reported to Miramax’s parent company Disney, or Weinstein had to be fired.
Perkins was mentioned in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html">New York Times’ Oct. 5 article</a> detailing decades of sexual harassment allegations against the producer, but she had signed such a contract barring her from telling her story. She told the Financial Times, “I want to publicly break my non-disclosure agreement.” She said she was doing so to expose the exploitative nature of such agreements. “Unless somebody does this there won’t be a debate about how egregious these agreements are and the amount of duress that victims are put under. My entire world fell in because I thought the law was there to protect those who abided by it. I discovered that it had nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with money and power.”nonadultIn an op-ed for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/lupita-nyongo-harvey-weinstein-assault.html">New York Times</a> published on Oct. 19, Lupita Nyong'o revealed she first met Weinstein in 2011 at an awards ceremony in Berlin while she was studying at the Yale School of Drama. As an aspiring actress, she decided to exchange information with him "in the hopes that I would be of consideration for one of his projects," she said.
Though there was no inappropriate behavior in their first meeting, Nyong'o said Weinstein soon invited her to attend a screening of a film at his home in Westport, Connecticut, not far from Yale's New Haven campus. Nyong'o recalled Weinstein sent a car for her and had the driver take her to a restaurant in Westport where he met her for lunch. She said he insisted she have a vodka and diet soda, instead of the juice she requested. “Get her what I tell you to get her. I’m the one paying the bill,” she said he told the waiter. She told him she wouldn't drink the beverage and eventually she said he gave up and called her "stubborn."
At his home, Nyong'o said he introduced her to his staff and young children before they went to the screening room. About 15 minutes in, Nyong'o wrote, "Harvey came for me, saying he wanted to show me something." She said she wanted to finish the movie, but he insisted, she recalled, and led her to his bedroom. According to Nyong'o, Weinstein announced that he "wanted to give me a massage." She recalled: "I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times. ... He agreed to this and lay on the bed. I began to massage his back to buy myself time." Then, Nyong'o said, Weinstein announced he wanted to take off his pants. When she asked him not to, she said he got up and did so anyway. She walked toward the door and left with his driver back to New Haven. At the time, Nyong'o rationalized the incident because "I was in an educational program where I was giving massages to my classmates and colleagues every day," she said.
She decided not to put herself in a situation to be alone with Weinstein again, but invited him to a production she was in at Yale. He was unable to attend, and, Nyong'o wrote, he said he would make it up to her. He eventually invited her to see a Broadway staged reading of <i>Finding Neverland</i> and told her she could bring friends. After the performance, the actor said Weinstein invited her and her friends to a restaurant for a big dinner. She said he sat her next to him and her male friends at a different table, but nothing else happened. "I left feeling that perhaps he had learned my boundaries and was going to respect them," she wrote.
A couple of months later, Nyong'o said she received an email from Weinstein to go to another screening and for drinks in TriBeCa. Shortly after he arrived, he said, “Let’s cut to the chase. I have a private room upstairs where we can have the rest of our meal.” She said she told him she "preferred to eat in the restaurant"; in turn, "he told me not to be so naïve. If I wanted to be an actress, then I had to be willing to do this sort of thing. He said he had dated Famous Actress X and Y and look where that had gotten them." She said she declined and he told her, "We are done here. You can leave."
When she saw Weinstein again at the premiere party for <i>12 Years a Slave</i> at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2013, she said he admitted that "he had treated me so badly in the past. He was ashamed of his actions and he promised to respect me moving forward." After she won an Oscar for her performance in <i>12 Years a Slave</i>, she received an offer for a Weinstein Company movie, which she turned down. She said Weinstein tried to persuade her at Cannes 2014 to join the project, but she resisted. "My survival plan was to avoid Harvey and men like him at all costs, and I did not know that I had allies in this," she wrote, noting she hasn't dealt with any similar situations in the business since. "I speak up to make certain that this is not the kind of misconduct that deserves a second chance. I speak up to contribute to the end of the conspiracy of silence," she wrote.
Weinstein later denied Nyong'o's accusations.
"Mr. Weinstein has a different recollection of the events, but believes Lupita is a brilliant actress and a major force for the industry. Last year, she sent a personal invitation to Mr. Weinstein to see her in her Broadway show <i>Eclipsed</i>," a spokesperson for Weinstein told <a href="http://ew.com/movies/2017/10/20/harvey-weinstein-responds-lupita-nyongo-accusations">Entertainment Weekly.</a>
A spokesperson for Nyong'o told Entertainment Weekly she had "no further comment."nonadultAt a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiarosenbaum/new-harvey-weinstein-allegations">press conference</a> with celebrity attorney Gloria Allred on Oct. 20, former actor Heather Kerr recalled being summoned to a private meeting with Weinstein in 1989. "He asked me if I was good," said Kerr, who appeared on <i>The Facts of Life</i> and <i>Mama’s Family</i>. "I started to tell him about my training and acting experience and he said, ‘No. I need to know if you’re good.’" She said he kept repeating the word and then "he unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis," according to Kerr. She said he then grabbed her hand and "forced it onto his penis and held it there." Kerr said Weinstein told her: "This is how things work in Hollywood, and all actresses who'd made it did it this way." She decided to quit acting soon thereafter.nonadultThe head of Russia's international film promotion body, Roskino, told <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/russian-tv-hostess-alleges-disgusting-harvey-weinstein-incident-i-was-frozen-1050218">The Hollywood Reporter</a> that in 2004, she agreed to meet Weinstein in a public place in Venice. After she arrived, she said she was greeted by his assistant, who directed her up to Weinstein's private room. "The assistant said that he would be joining us, so I went up," she said. She recalled that the assistant quickly left the two of them alone in the room. "I was frozen into immobility like a statue, because a well-known producer with whom I've come to discuss modern Russian writers, was in a bathrobe," she said. She remembered that Weinstein began talking about massages; Mtsitouridze said she bolted out the door when a server delivered champagne to the room.
When they later met again at an industry event, she recalled Weinstein telling her not to say anything and to "be a smart girl."nonadultIn an interview on the <a href="http://www.klbjfm.com/media/podcasts/10-19-2017-pt-3-sean-young">Dudley and Bob with Matt Show</a> that aired Oct. 19, Young said that she "personally experienced" Weinstein "pulling his you-know-what out of his pants." She was working on a Miramax film at the time — 1992’s <i>Love Crimes</i>. She said, "My basic response was, 'You know, Harvey, I really don't think you should be pulling that thing out, it's not very pretty.'" She recalled that she never met with the producer again. She said she understood why women had not told their stories publicly for so long: “The minute you actually stand up for yourself in Hollywood, you’re the crazy one.”nonadultOn Oct. 17, <i>Game of Thrones</i> star Lena Headey <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/alannabennett/lena-headey-weinstein-gilliam">tweeted</a> about her experiences with Weinstein. She <a href="https://twitter.com/IAMLenaHeadey/status/920309494143504384">tweeted</a> that she was at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 promoting <i>The Brothers Grimm</i>, which was distributed by Miramax,&nbsp;and Weinstein asked her to take a walk by the water. He "made some sort of suggestive comment, gesture," she tweeted. "I just laughed it off ... I remember thinking, <i>It's got to be a joke</i>." (Headey also pointed out that&nbsp;during production on <i>The Brothers Grimm</i>, she was "subjected to endless bullying" by director Terry Gilliam.) She <a href="https://twitter.com/IAMLenaHeadey/status/920309515995746304">said</a> she met with Weinstein in LA years later at his hotel, and because of her reaction in Venice, she "believed that he respected [her] boundary" and would keep things professional. After talking about films over breakfast, <a href="https://twitter.com/IAMLenaHeadey/status/920309541430013952">Headey said that Weinstein then led her to his room</a> under the pretext of giving her a script. "My whole body went into high alert," she wrote. She said she told him "nothing is going to happen" between them. After that, she said <a href="https://twitter.com/IAMLenaHeadey/status/920309569074679808">Weinstein was "silent" and "furious,"</a> and walked her out of the hotel "by grabbing and holding tightly to the back of [her] arm." Headey said Weinstein told her, "Don't tell anyone about this, not your manager, not your agent." After that, she tweeted, she got in the car he paid for and cried.nonadultIn an article published by <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/marisa-coughlan-comes-forward-harvey-weinstein-story-1049896">the Hollywood Reporter</a> on Oct. 18, Marisa Coughlan said that in 1999, when she was 25, she met Weinstein after acting in two Miramax projects. She said that, one night, she ran into him at a restaurant and when she went to pay the bill for herself and her friends, he had already paid it. After she sent a thank-you note, he called her to set up a meeting in Los Angeles at the the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel; when she arrived, everyone else “left the suite like the place was on fire,” she said. After some talk of business and potential roles, talk turned to unprofessional matters, she said. "He told me that he has a lot of 'special friends' and they give each other massages." She said it was “transactional,” that he was suggesting sexual favors in exchange for career opportunities. “He wanted to barter sex for movie roles,” she said.
At a later meeting, she said he tried to pressure her into accompanying him to his hotel room after they met in a public place; she said she declined.nonadultErika Rosenbaum told <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-october-13-2017-1.4352029/he-really-took-something-from-me-montreal-actress-erika-rosenbaum-says-harvey-weinstein-assaulted-her-1.4353082">CBC’s The Current</a> that she first met Weinstein when she was in her twenties, at a party shortly after she moved to Los Angeles. She agreed to meet with him in a hotel room, thinking he could help her fledgling acting career, she said. When his assistant left the room, she recalled, “He put an arm around me and started, as if he was a boyfriend all of a sudden, started trying to be intimate with me. ... I just remember that feeling of having to fight off an invader, but I had to do it in a friendly way because I was terrified to anger this man.” Rosenbaum said she massaged his shoulders as a compromise “in order to get out.” She added, “I thought that something I had done had provoked this behaviour in him and so I was deeply guilty for whatever I had done to allow this to happen.”
Rosenbaum, who is now 37, said a few years later she met with him again, after meeting with Weinstein’s female casting agent. She said he made advances again in his office, and she kept her voice quiet so that his employees wouldn’t know what was happening. “I'm like covering for him even as he's doing it,” she said. At a later meeting in a hotel suite, she said he tried to make her watch him shower, and then grabbed her. “He holds me by the back of the neck and faces me to the mirror and very quietly tells me that he just wants to look at me and he starts to masturbate standing behind me,” she said. She hoped the stories becoming public would help others.nonadultRei, an Italian actor, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvaKJbbVF1s">said</a> Weinstein appeared nude at a meeting in a Rome hotel room in 1998, presented her with massage lotion, and suggested a massage.nonadultIn a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-canadian-actress-larissa-gomes-alleges-1508276551-htmlstory.html">Los Angeles Times</a> report from Oct. 17, Gomes said she met Weinstein when she was 21 and working on the Miramax film <i>Get Over It</i> in Toronto. The producer, she said, introduced himself and asked her what she thought about the production. “It was intoxicating, it was validating,” she said about talking to him. She recalled that Weinstein asked her for her number through his assistant, and they had a breakfast meeting at his hotel. After that meeting, which she described as "professional," she said he asked to meet her again in his hotel room, but in the evening.
She said at that second hotel meeting, he asked her to follow him into his bedroom, and then he asked her to lie on the bed with him and take off her shirt. She said that when she left the bedroom, he followed her and massaged her shoulders and neck as she protested. “He would not stop. He just kept pushing his hands close to my chest forcefully until I finally was able to get up and away from him,” she said. She recalled that he told her Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd had been in the same position once, and “Look at them now.” She said she started to leave, and he grabbed her and tried to kiss her. She turned her head away. “I was so incredibly discouraged and disillusioned,” she said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of the industry any more if this is what it was.”nonadultActor Vu Thu Phuong wrote in Vietnamese in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/vuthuphuong99/posts/1557792064302007?pnref=story">a Facebook post</a> on Oct. 13 about a meeting she had with Weinstein after she acted in the 2010 film <i>Shanghai</i>, which was distributed by The Weinstein Company. According to the publication <a href="https://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/11513-vietnamese-actress-among-victims-of-harvey-weinstein-s-sexual-misconduct">Saigoneer</a>, Phuong said Weinstein appeared at their meeting in a towel and asked her if she’d be willing to be in sex scenes in future films, offering to “teach” her. She said she declined, though she recalled feeling horrified and wondering whether she was in danger of sexual violence. She quickly returned home. “I shelved my ‘American dream’ as well as the contract with Weinstein’s film company,” she wrote.nonadultIn an article published by <a href="http://buffalonews.com/2017/10/15/buffalo-woman-tells-1980-encounter-harvey-weinstein-hotel-room/">Buffalo News</a> on Oct. 15, Paula Wachowiak described an encounter she had with Weinstein in 1980 while working as a production assistant on <i>The Burning</i>, a slasher film Weinstein has both a story by and production credit on. She said she was asked by her supervisor to deliver some checks to Weinstein in his hotel room so he could sign them; when Weinstein answered the door, she said, he was in a towel, which he quickly dropped. After talking with her about the checks, he asked her for a massage, she said; she declined. “He tried to encourage me by telling me what a fantastic opportunity it was for me to be part of this project," Wachowiak told Buffalo News. "I told him that I was happy to be part of the project but I would not touch him. He finally gave up and signed all the checks." Later in the production, she recalled Weinstein asking her if seeing him naked was "the highlight of your internship."nonadultKelly posted on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BaMUmN9AJM_/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=minkakelly">Instagram</a> on Oct. 13 that the day after meeting Weinstein for the first time, he asked her to go to a meeting in his hotel room; the actor declined, and met him in a hotel restaurant, where she said he quickly dismissed the assistant who was with them. She said he offered her, among other things, “a lavish life filled with trips around the world” but only “IF I would be his girlfriend.” She wrote, “All I knew was not to offend this very powerful man and to get out of the situation as quickly as possible,” so she told him she wanted to keep their relationship professional. She recalled him telling her not to tell anyone about their conversation. She told her agent, who was not surprised. “I'm sorry for obliging his orders to be complicit in protecting his behavior, which he obviously knew was wrong or he wouldn’t have asked me not to tell anyone in the first place,” she said. “I am appalled for all the women being told these occurrences are in any way their fault.”nonadultKirshner wrote in the <a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/i-was-a-victim-of-harvey-weinstein-but-we-have-to-focus-on-the-future/article36584019/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&amp;utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&amp;utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links">Globe and Mail</a> Oct. 13 that she had an “ordeal in a hotel room where [Weinstein] attempted to treat me like chattel that could be purchased with the promise of work in exchange for being his disposable orifice.” But, the actor wrote, she did not want to “waste this precious space on Harvey Weinstein,” declining to give him “the privilege of more ink” and instead focusing on larger systemic issues in the industry, particularly focusing on what she saw as Hollywood unions failing to protect their members. “SAG and ACTRA do not have holistic policies and procedures should their members file complaints,” she said. “That needs to change now. And change does not mean publishing another well-meaning brochure or e-mail blast about anti-harassment policies.” She urged the union to enforce an end to meetings in hotel rooms, and called for major reform of the way investigations of complaints are handled — she called the current practices ineffectual. She also urged the union to track the careers of complainants and monitor whether they'd been blacklisted, and to institute better mental healthcare policies. “Speaking out is powerful, and cathartic but it won't change the status quo,” she said. “Please don't release a statement about how the union supports its own. It's not enough. Protect us. Change this ineffective system.”nonadultThe model <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/style/harvey-weinstein-marchesa-georgina-chapman-anna-wintour.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=0&amp;mtrref=undefined">told the New York Times</a> she met Weinstein at a cocktail party in 2003 when she was 25. Not long after, her agent received a call from his office inviting her to lunch.
Goff told the Times she was nervous because she had heard Weinstein's reputation, but she took the meeting because she feared losing work if she offended him.
The lunch took place in a private dining room, and Goff told the Times that Weinstein began asking if she had a boyfriend and if it was an open relationship. She kept declining his advances, she said, both verbal and when he began touching her leg.
"When we finally stood up to go, he really started groping me, grabbing my breasts, grabbing my face and trying to kiss me," she told the Times. "I kept saying, ‘Please stop, please stop,' but he didn’t until I managed to get back into the public space."nonadultSagemiller told the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harvey-weinstein-melissa-sagemiller_us_59dff438e4b0a52aca16ba76?ir=Entertainment&amp;ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000027">Huffington Post</a> that in the summer of 2000 when she was 24, Weinstein had his assistant invite her to his hotel room to discuss a script. At the time, she was working on a movie he was producing — Get Over It. When the actor arrived in his hotel room, she recalled he was wearing a robe, and asked her to massage him, which she declined. She said that she told him she was going to leave, and then he told her she couldn’t leave without kissing him. Sagemiller recalled that he blocked the door and named other actors he’d had relations with, and said submitting to his advances would be good for her career. Finally, she kissed him, and she said he held her head and forced the kiss, after which he let her exit the room.nonadultOn Oct. 13, Everhart told the KLOS morning show <a href="http://www.955klos.com/2017/10/13/angie-everhart-talks-about-harvey-weinstein/">Frosty, Heidi &amp; Frank</a> that at the Venice Film Festival, she was sleeping in her bed on a boat when she awoke to Weinstein standing over her. The actor and model said that as he was blocking the door, he started masturbating and ejaculated on the carpet, and then told her she was a “a really nice girl” and that she shouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. She said she did tell the other people on the boat but no one did anything to help hold him accountable; Everhart herself said she had never told her story publicly before: “If I had said something earlier … I probably wouldn’t have worked ever again.” She told one of the hosts, “Heidi, I was listening to you say you should just yell and scream and just try to get out of a situation, but sometimes you can’t always do that, it just doesn’t work. ... I was just compelled to say it to you because I was like, you can’t always tell people!”nonadultBindi, a massage therapist, told ABC’s <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/massage-therapist-claims-weinstein-sexually-assaulted-part-50474356%E2%80%9D">20/20</a> that in 2010, she was booked for a session in Weinstein’s suite at the Montage Hotel. In the interview that aired Oct. 13, she said Weinstein told her she should write a book about what he called her “artform” of massage, and after the session, he began texting her about a book deal. “Who would not be flattered?” Bindi said. But at their second appointment, she said, he stopped the massage, stood up, and asked her about the size of his penis. She said he followed her into the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and began to masturbate. She recalled that she expressed her discomfort and told him to stop, and then “he grabbed me and started groping on my chest, and I pushed him away. … What do you do in a situation like that?” Weinstein’s employees followed up with her in emails — reviewed by ABC — about a book deal, which she interpreted as a form of payment for her silence. She did not pursue the book deal, and she said she was scared to pursue legal action against him.nonadultWilliams told <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/accusers-share-stories-harvey-weinsteins-alleged-advances/story?id=50398447">20/20</a> that she met Weinstein in 1990. She said after a dinner party, he sent her a car to take her to what the then 20-year-old model thought was a party; when she arrived at the Hollywood Hills home, she recalled, there was no party, just her and Weinstein. “He immediately starts massaging my neck as I walk in so I know right away that this … is going to be uncomfortable.” Williams said she excused herself for a cigarette, came back inside and found Weinstein with a bottle of champagne. She said he quickly exposed himself, and she fled the house on foot. She had not told her story publicly before because of “deep shame,” but when “Gwyneth [Paltrow] said something in the press about it, and she had experiences as well. And all of a sudden I just felt it lifted.”nonadultOn Thursday, Oct. 12, Beckinsale posted on her <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BaJiAhyn7Y5/?taken-by=katebeckinsale">Instagram</a> that when she was 17, she received a call to meet Harvey Weinstein at his hotel. "When I arrived, reception told me to go to his room. He opened the door in his bathrobe," she wrote. "After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning, I left, uneasy but unscathed." A few years later, Beckinsale said Weinstein "asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting. I realized he couldn't remember if he had assaulted me or not." She went on to say she declined to work with Weinstein professionally many times over the course of her career, which sometimes led to him "screaming at me," "calling me a cunt," and "making threats." Beckinsale also said a male friend of hers warned another young female actor about Weinstein. "He received a phone call the next day saying he would never work in another Miramax film," Beckinsale wrote. "The girl was already sleeping with Harvey and had told him that my friend had warned her off."nonadultSubkoff told <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/tara-subkoff-accuser-harvey-weinstein-scandal-1202588924/">Variety</a> that Weinstein sexually harassed her in the '90s when she was up for a part in one of his movies. At a party the night she was offered the role, Subkoff said Weinstein grabbed her to sit on his lap. "I could feel that he had an erection," she told <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/tara-subkoff-accuser-harvey-weinstein-scandal-1202588924/">Variety</a>. Subkoff said Weinstein asked her to come outside with him "and other things I don’t want to share, but it was implied that if I did not comply with doing what he asked me to do that I would not get the role that I had already been informally offered." She said she laughed in his face and left the party. Afterward, Subkoff said she got the reputation of being "too difficult to work with." "It became impossible for me to get work as an actress after this," she told <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/tara-subkoff-accuser-harvey-weinstein-scandal-1202588924/">Variety</a>. She said years later, in 2015, Weinstein badmouthed her directorial debut <i>#Horror</i>. "That refusing to comply with one powerful man’s sexual advances could not only ruin my first career as an actress, but almost twenty years later also had the power to affect my first and only feature film to get distribution is so important to show how the abuse of power by the patriarchy is affecting all female artists everywhere," Subkoff said.nonadultFrench actor Darel told <a href="http://people.com/movies/florence-darel-says-harvey-weinstein-propositioned-her-in-hotel/">People</a> that Weinstein propositioned her in the mid-’90s, when she was 26. She found the incident shocking. In the Oct. 12 article, she said, “What happened to me may not be illegal but it was inappropriate. Very inappropriate.” Weinstein’s company had just bought a film she starred in, and Weinstein, she had told <a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/florence-darel-weinstein-m-a-propose-d-etre-sa-maitresse-quelques-jours-par-an-12-10-2017-7325427.php">Le Parisien</a>, invited her to what she thought was a business meeting in his hotel room. At the meeting, she said he pressured her to submit to his advances for the sake of her career. She declined and left, and mostly kept her story to herself. She told People, “What could I do ? Could I go to the police and say, ‘This disgusting man made me an indecent proposal in his hotel room at The Ritz?’ They would have laughed at me.” She added, “Why if everyone knew it, is it only coming out now?”nonadultDix told the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/harvey-weinstein-alleged-assault-sophie-dix-english-actor-ruined-career">Guardian</a> that when she was a 22-year-old actor, Weinstein invited her to his hotel room to watch some film footage. Once in the room, she said, he asked her for a massage. In the Oct. 12 article, she said Weinstein pushed her onto the bed and tugged at her clothes. She recalled that she ran to the bathroom and locked the door, and when she decided to try to escape the hotel room, she opened the door and found him masturbating. Months later, he called her and apologized, she recalled, asking her if he could do something for her; she declined, feeling retraumatized by the call. “You think you go into the film business because you think it is this free-thinking, liberal-minded industry, but actually it could not be more opposite. It is as antiquated, as sexist and rigged as they come.” The interaction with Weinstein was, she said, “the single most damaging thing that’s happened in my life.”nonadultIn a <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaireAForlani/status/918518181894930432">tweet</a> posted Oct. 12, Forlani wrote that she was coming forward after reading Mira Sorvino’s account of coming forward in <a href="http://time.com/4978659/mira-sorvino-harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment/">Time</a>. The actor was approached by Ronan Farrow for the story he ultimately published in the New Yorker, but she decided not to participate. She said she met with Weinstein twice at the Peninsula hotel, and “[n]othing happened” because “I escaped five times.” She describes ducking and diving to avoid Weinstein’s advances; he had suggested a massage, she said. Forlani recalled that during several dinners with him when she was in her mid-twenties, he told her about the other female actors he’d slept with. She had been “scared of the repercussions” of coming forward about abuse: “I was punished when I was brave,” she said. Right now, she said she feels “moved that these brave women who came forward are creating alchemy of all bad, brutal ugliness. … I feel excited,” she wrote, “that this could be a thing of the past.”nonadultIn an essay published by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/11/harvey-weinstein-lea-seydoux?CMP=share_btn_tw">The Guardian</a> Oct. 11, Seydoux wrote she met Weinstein at a fashion show and he invited her to drinks; she already knew, she said, that it would not be about work and he had “other intentions.” She said they met in the lobby of his hotel and his female assistant was with them. After a while, he invited her up to his room for a drink. “It was hard to say no because he’s so powerful,” she said. “All the girls are scared of him.” The assistant came upstairs with them, but soon left, and when Seydoux and Weinstein were alone in his room, he jumped on her and tried to kiss her, she said — she had to physically fight him off. She wrote that she’s seen Weinstein many times since, and she’s seen him openly pursuing other women and talking about all the famous women he’s slept with. “Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything,” she said. “It’s unbelievable that he’s been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career.”nonadultThe actor, who appears in the upcoming Weinstein Company movie Tulip Fever, released a <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/918163984309784576">statement</a> on Oct. 11 to HuffPost's Yashar Ali about two incidents between her and Weinstein. According to Delevigne, Weinstein called her and asked whether she’d had sex with the women she was “seen out with.” She said it was an “uncomfortable” call for her, and he told her that if she was gay or openly in a relationship with a woman, she would not succeed as an actor. Later, she went to a meeting with him and a director in a hotel lobby. Weinstein, she said, began to brag about actors he’d slept with and asked her to go to his room at the hotel. She said she went to his room feeling “powerless” and “hoping that I was wrong about the situation.” In his hotel room, she was relieved to see another woman, but then Weinstein told them to kiss, she said. She nervously began to sing, and then said she had to leave; Weinstein, she said, walked her to the door and tried to kiss her on the mouth. She left, and still played the character in the film they’d met about. “I felt awful that I did the movie,” she said. "I was also terrified that this sort of thing had happened to so many women I know but no one had said anything because of fear."nonadultPaltrow told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?mtrref=undefined">New York Times</a> in an article published on Oct. 10 that, after hiring her for the lead in <i>Emma</i>, Weinstein invited the actor, then 22, to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for what she believed was a work meeting. She said he placed his hand on her leg and suggested they move to the bedroom for massages. She declined, she said, but described herself as “petrified” by the experience. She said Weinstein later called and “screamed” at her because she’d told her boyfriend at the time, Brad Pitt, and Pitt had confronted the producer. “I was expected to keep the secret,” she said. She worked with him for years after that and felt pressured to publicly praise him; she told the Times that she was coming forward to support the women who had already done so, hoping others would feel less alone. “We’re at a point in time when women need to send a clear message that this is over.”nonadultJolie did not go into specifics in an article published by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?mtrref=undefined&amp;mtrref=undefined&amp;gwh=1DC54273536F015305F942DD044AF9B2&amp;gwt=pay">New York Times</a> on Oct. 10, but she said, “I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did.” She declined his unwanted advances in a hotel room in the late 1990s, she said. “This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”nonadultGraham wrote a piece for <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/columns/heather-graham-harvey-weinstein-sex-for-movie-role-1202586113/">Variety</a> recalling an instance in the early 2000s when Weinstein called her into his office and told her he wanted to put her in one of his movies. During the conversation, Graham said he also mentioned that he had an agreement with his wife that he could sleep with other women when he was out of town. "There was no explicit mention that to star in one of those films I had to sleep with him, but the subtext was there," she wrote. Graham said she had asked to bring a fellow actor friend to a follow-up meeting at Weinstein's hotel because of her "discomfort with the situation," but when her friend canceled, Graham said she called Weinstein to postpone. She alleged he tried to tell her that her friend was there, but, she wrote, "I knew he was lying, so I politely and apologetically reiterated that I could no longer come by." Graham noted she was never hired by Weinstein and she commended Judd. "While I still do feel guilty for not speaking up all those years ago, I’m glad for this moment of reckoning," she wrote.nonadultLouisette Geiss, a former actor and script writer spoke out Oct. 10, alleging that Weinstein begged her to watch him masturbate following a 2008 meeting during the Sundance Film Festival.
In a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred, Geiss said Weinstein invited her to a meeting at the restaurant of the hotel they were both staying at during the festival. When they arrived, they were asked to leave because the restaurant was closing down for the night. Weinstein offered to reconvene in his office, which was next to his hotel room, Geiss said, adding that she hesitated at first because she had heard rumors about him. She told him she'd go to his office if he promised not to touch her. "He laughed it off," Geiss said.
Once in his office, Geiss was pitching her film, she said, and Weinstein excused himself to go to the bathroom. When he returned, she alleged he was wearing nothing but a robe, open in the front. "He told me to keep talking about my film and that he was going to get into the hot tub," she said. When she finished her pitch, he asked her to watch him masturbate, Geiss alleged. "My heart was racing and I was very scared," she said, adding that she told him she was leaving. Geiss said Weinstein proceeded to get out of the tub and grab her by the forearm, pleading with her to watch him masturbate, promising to greenlight her script if she did. Geiss credited this incident as the reason she left the movie industry. "I never ever thought I would have a chance to stand up for myself against Harvey Weinstein," she said.nonadultRoberts told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html">New York Times</a> that in 1984, when she was 20, she met Weinstein when she was waiting tables in New York. He invited her to his hotel room for what she thought was an audition; she said he was nude in the tub when she arrived, and he pressured her to remove her clothes, too. Roberts, who is now a professor, said she declined his advances and left; she felt manipulated, she said.nonadultIn 1993, when she was a 23-year-old actor, Weinstein took Kendall to a screening and then asked her to accompany him to his apartment, she told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html">New York Times</a>. She said they had a pleasant conversation for an hour, during which time she thought, “He’s taking me seriously,” but then he excused himself and returned in a robe, asking for a massage and telling her “everybody” did it. When she declined, she said, he left the room and returned fully naked, chasing her around the room and physically blocking her from exiting.nonadultGodrèche told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?mtrref=undefined">New York Times</a> that Weinstein invited her to breakfast during the 1996 Cannes Film Festival to discuss her film, which his company was distributing. A female Miramax executive joined them for breakfast, she recalled, and then Weinstein asked her to go up to his suite at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc to see the view and further discuss her film. Upstairs, she said, he asked her for a massage and said it was common practice in America; after she refused, she said, “The next thing I know, he’s pressing against me and pulling off my sweater.” She recalled that she later contacted the female Miramax executive, who advised her to say nothing. Godrèche felt pressure to maintain a friendly relationship with Weinstein for the sake of her career.nonadultIn 2003, when Dunning was 24, she met Weinstein through her job serving at a nightclub, she told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html">New York Times</a>. He offered to help her career, and at one point his assistant arranged a meal at his hotel in New York, she said. Dunning was directed up to Weinstein’s suite, where she said she found him in a bathrobe. She said he told her he would give her roles in his movies on the condition that she have a threesome with him. When she laughed, Weinstein became angry, she said. She recalled that he told her, “You’ll never make it in this business,” and, “This is how the business works.”nonadultAccording to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a>, Weinstein approached aspiring actor Lucia Evans, then Stoller, at a club in New York in 2004, shortly before she began her senior year of college. She told the New Yorker that "she had heard rumors about Weinstein [but] she let him have her number." Evans said she initially declined his late-night calls asking to meet, but agreed to a daytime meeting at the Miramax office with Weinstein and a female casting executive. After allegedly telling her she'd “be great in <i>Project Runway</i>” if she lost weight, Weinstein “forced [her] to perform oral sex on him.” She said she objected, but "Weinstein took his penis out of his pants and pulled her head down onto it," according to the New Yorker. Afterwards, Evans said she lived with guilt for not fighting Weinstein harder. "My roommates told me to go to a therapist because they thought I was going to kill myself," she told the New Yorker.nonadultArgento told the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a> that in 1997, one of Weinstein's producers invited her to a Miramax party on the French Riviera, but when she arrived, only Weinstein was there. According to the Italian actor, Weinstein left the room and returned wearing a bathrobe and holding a bottle of lotion, asking for a massage. Argento told the New Yorker she "reluctantly agreed to give Weinstein a massage, he pulled her skirt up, forced her legs apart, and performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop.” He did not, Argento said.
She said Weinstein "kept contacting" her after the incident and sent expensive gifts to her for a few months thereafter. In 1999, Argento worked with Weinstein when his company, Miramax, distributed <i>B. Monkey</i>, a movie she appeared in. Argento "eventually yielded to Weinstein’s further advances and even grew close to him," according to the New Yorker, and had a consensual sexual relationship with him over the course of the next five years. Argento told the New Yorker that she "believed that Weinstein would ruin her career if she didn't comply." Years later, when she was a single mother, Weinstein offered to pay for a nanny and Argento said she felt "obliged" to have sex with him.
A few years after the incident, Argento wrote and directed a movie called <i>Scarlet Diva</i>, which included <a href="https://twitter.com/asiaargento/status/917770645966114816">a scene</a> in which a producer corners a young woman and asks her for a massage in a hotel room. “People would ask me about him because of the scene in the movie,” Argento told the New Yorker. She said Weinstein recognized himself in the character, told her it was "very funny" and said he was "sorry for whatever happened.”
According to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a>, Weinstein asked Argento to meet with a private investigator and give testimony on his behalf once he'd heard that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?">New York Times</a> and New Yorker stories were close to publishing.nonadultMira Sorvino, who starred in several of Weinstein’s films, said Weinstein "sexually harassed her and tried to pressure her into a physical relationship while they worked together," according to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a>. In 1995 when she was with Weinstein promoting <i>Mighty Aphrodite</i> at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sorvino said she found herself in a hotel with the producer. "He started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around," she said. She said she warded him off and left the room.
Sorvino told the New Yorker she struggled for years about whether or not to come forward, "partly because she was aware that it was mild compared to the experiences of other women" and also because Weinstein was so instrumental in her success. She also said she remains close friends with Weinstein's brother and business partner Bob Weinstein, whom she never told about Weinstein's behavior. She did tell a female employee at Miramax about the harassment; by doing that, and turning down Harvey Weinstein's advances, she said she felt that those actions hurt her career. "There may have been other factors, but I definitely felt iced out and that my rejection of Harvey had something to do with it," Sorvino told the New Yorker.nonadultIn Dec. 2014, 25-year-old Nestor started working as a temporary front desk assistant at the Weinstein Company. As Nestor told the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a>, she was told on her first day that she was Weinstein's "type," and he referred to her as "the pretty girl.” Nestor said Weinstein asked how old she was, made her write down her telephone number, and told her to meet him for drinks that night.
She said she made up an excuse, and suggested an early-morning coffee the next day instead, assuming he would say no. Nestor said Weinstein told her to meet him at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills, where he was staying. After being warned about Weinstein’s reputation, Nestor told the New Yorker she intentionally “dressed very frumpy.”
She called their meeting the “most excruciating and uncomfortable hour of my life.” She said he offered her career help, and then boasted about his sexual experiences, including those with famous actresses. “He said, ‘You know, we could have a lot of fun,’” Nestor recalled. “I could put you in my London office, and you could work there and you could be my girlfriend.” After she declined, Nestor recalled Weinstein saying, “Oh, the girls always say ‘no.’ You know, ‘No, no.’ And then they have a beer or two and then they’re throwing themselves at me.” She said Weinstein told her “that he’d never had to do anything like Bill Cosby.”
According to Nestor, she refused his advances at least a dozen times. “‘No’ did not mean ‘no’ to him,” she told the New Yorker. “I felt trapped ... I was very afraid of him. And I knew how well connected he was. And how if I pissed him off then I could never have a career in that industry.” Nestor said her male colleague who referred her reported the incident to HR and she talked to company officials about it, but didn’t pursue it further. Nestor completed her temporary placement and then, she told the New Yorker, she "decided not to go into entertainment because of this incident.”nonadultAfter the French actor met Weinstein in 2010 at a party at the Cannes Film Festival, he asked her to a lunch meeting at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, according to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a>. In the meeting, de Caunes said Weinstein said that he was going to be producing a film adaptation of a book that would be shooting in France; de Caunes, who was in her early thirties at the time, said he told her that he couldn’t remember the title, but said he had the book in his room. She said she had to leave, but after Weinstein begged her to go with him to get the book, she agreed.
She took a phone call when they got up to his hotel room, and during that time, Weinstein went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and emerged naked with an erection. According to de Caunes, he "demanded that she lie on the bed and told her that many other women had done so before her. ... I was very petrified,” de Caunes said. “I could feel that the more I was freaking out, the more he was excited.”
De Caunes said she left and Weinstein called "relentlessly" over the next few hours, offering her gifts and repeating that nothing had happened. She told the New Yorker that she’s heard similar stories through the years. “I know that everybody — I mean everybody — in Hollywood knows that it’s happening,” de Caunes said. “So many people are involved and see what’s happening. But everyone’s too scared to say anything.”nonadultArquette told the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a> that one evening in the early '90s, she was supposed to meet Weinstein for dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel to pick up the script for a new film. She said she was told to meet Weinstein in his room and he opened the door wearing a bathrobe, saying his neck was sore and that he needed a message. After Arquette said she told him that she could recommend a good masseuse, she said he then grabbed her hand and put it on his neck. She told the New Yorker he yanked her hand away, but Weinstein grabbed it again and pulled it toward his erect penis. Arquette said she told Weinstein, “I will never do that," which Weinstein, she said, told her was a huge mistake. She said he named women whose careers he claimed he advanced after they slept with him. “I’ll never be that girl,” Arquette recalled telling him. Then, she left. She believes her career suffered as a result. “He made things very difficult for me for years,” Arquette told the New Yorker.nonadultThe actor told the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a> she met Weinstein at a Golden Globes party in Jan. 2011, after which he invited her to a business meeting at the Peninsula. According to Barth, he told her to come up to his room, where he, according to the New Yorker, "alternated between offering to cast her in a film and demanding a naked massage in bed." When she moved toward the door to leave, Barth said Weinstein lashed out and told her she needed to lose weight “to compete with Mila Kunis." She alleged he then promised her a meeting with one of his female executives, which she said "seemed to be purely a formality."nonadultModel Zoë Brock published an essay on <a href="https://medium.com/@zoebrock/harvey-weinstein-and-i-at-the-hotel-du-cap-57e5883cde36">Medium</a> on Oct. 7 in which she said Weinstein separated her from her friends and took her back to his hotel room during the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. As she recalled, he went into the bathroom and emerged naked, asking the then-23-year-old model for a massage. When she declined, she said he offered to give her a massage. Brock said she then ran into the bathroom, and chastised Weinstein through the locked door until he put his clothes back on. When she emerged from the bathroom, she recalled he was wearing a robe and "whimpered" that she had rejected him because he was fat. She said he offered to assist her career and sent her roses the next day with a thank-you note.
She wrote, "I wish I had thought there was something, anything, I could do to stop him from hurting women all these years."nonadultGuitierrez met Weinstein at a reception for a show Weinstein was producing at Radio City Music Hall in March 2015. She was 22 at the time. According to the New Yorker, he reached out to her agency to set up a "business meeting" and when she met with Weinstein at his office, she said he asked if her breasts were real. Then, she said he grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hands up her skirt.
She said she told him to stop and he finally relented; he told her his assistant would give her tickets to see <i>Finding Neverland</i> on Broadway, which he was producing, and that he would meet her at the show that evening. Gutierrez never went to the show and instead went to the NYPD to report the assault. Gutierrez filed a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/harvey-weinstein-under-investigation-for-alleged-groping?utm_term=.rm08bYxMp#.cgwj4N0X7">complaint</a> saying that Weinstein had groped her during a meeting in New York. (The model had previously <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolasmedinamora/how-harvey-weinsteins-accuser-spoke-out-against-the-most-pow?utm_term=.xm6DGBwXo#.gbv0ZB46V">spoken out to help expose</a> sexual abuse committed by the entourage of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.)
According to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a>, Weinstein called while she was sitting with investigators from the Special Victims Division to tell her he was annoyed that she didn't meet him. Gutierrez and investigators devised a plan that she would agree to see <i>Finding Neverland</i> the following day and meet with Weinstein while wearing a wire to record their conversation. In the recording, <a href="http://video.newyorker.com/watch/harvey-weinstein-caught-on-tape">which can be heard in part via the New Yorker</a>, Gutierrez meets Weinstein at a hotel bar. When he asks her to join him in his hotel room while he showers, she says no, though does eventually agree to his demand to go upstairs. When she refuses to go into his room, she also asks him directly why he groped her. “Oh, please, I’m sorry, just come on in,” Weinstein says. “I’m used to that. Come on. Please. ... I won’t do it again." Eventually, Weinstein finally agrees to let her leave.
Details of Guitierrez's past complicated the situation, the Manhattan District Attorney told the New Yorker, and they <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/lisatozzi/harvey-weinstein-wont-face-charges?utm_term=.ocJmWYdkr#.dtMqkVDrp">decided not to file charges</a> —&nbsp;though one police source told the New Yorker that they had "more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein" for sexual abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of three months in jail.
In a statement at the time, the DA's office said: “This case was taken seriously from the outset, with a thorough investigation conducted by our Sex Crimes Unit. After analyzing the available evidence, including multiple interviews with both parties, a criminal charge is not supported.” According to the New Yorker, in settling with Weinstein, Gutierrez signed a "highly restrictive" nondisclosure agreement, including "an affidavit stating that the acts Weinstein admits to in the recording never happened."
The New York DA's office released the following statement after the New Yorker article was published: “If we could have prosecuted Harvey Weinstein for the conduct that occurred in 2015, we would have. Mr. Weinstein’s pattern of mistreating women, as recounted in recent reports, is disgraceful and shocks the conscience."nonadultJudd told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">New York Times</a> that in the 1990s, when she was in her twenties, Weinstein met with her in his room at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel wearing only a bathrobe; the actor said she thought she had agreed to a business meeting, but Weinstein asked her for a massage and, after she declined, asked her to watch him shower.
“I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask,” she told the paper, and explaining that she felt “trapped.” There was immense pressure to be friendly with him because of the cachet of Miramax, the film distribution and production company Weinstein ran at the time, she said.nonadultMadden, a former employee of Weinstein's, told the New York Times that, starting in 1991, Weinstein would ask her to massage him in hotel rooms. At one point, she said, she locked herself in his hotel bathroom, crying. She described his behavior as "manipulative," and said, “You constantly question yourself — am I the one who is the problem?”nonadultThe New York Times reported that McGowan, who was then 23, reached a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein after an incident in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival. The actor and director, who declined to comment on the newspaper's story, has seemingly alluded to Weinstein in the past and very recently. In October 2016, she <a href="https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/786723576275664896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fjezebel.com%2Fajax%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-786723576275664896%26autosize%3D1">tweeted</a>, "my ex sold our movie to my rapist for distribution," adding to a hashtag that chronicled reasons women don't report assaults.nonadultIn an essay published on the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harvey-weinstein-and-the-end-of-open-secrets_us_59d7fd7be4b08ce873a8cdf7">Huffington Post</a> Oct. 6, documentary filmmaker and actor Newsom wrote about her own experience with Weinstein. She did not go into detail about what happened, but she said what had happened to her was “very similar” to other previously published accounts in the New York Times. She wrote, “I was naive, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances ― work invitations with a friend late-night at The Toronto Film Festival, and later an invitation to meet with him about a role in The Peninsula Hotel, where staff were present and then all of a sudden disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extremely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend.” She said the other women who had openly told their stories had “inspired [her] to publicly speak the truth.”nonadultSivan told <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/weinstein-sexual-harassment-allegation_us_59d7ea3de4b046f5ad984211?4dk">HuffPost</a> in an article published Oct. 6 that Weinstein had propositioned her a decade ago in New York. The TV reporter said Weinstein took her on a tour of his restaurant, took her into the kitchen, dismissed the staffers who were there, and tried to kiss her. When she informed him that she was in a relationship, he told her to "just stand there"; he had her cornered and began to masturbate in front of her, ejaculating into a potted plant, she said. On Oct. 9, when Megyn Kelly asked Sivan why she didn't go public at the time, Sivan said, "I was lucky enough to never have to deal with him again. ... And also there's that feeling, that I'm sure so many women feel, of shame, of, 'Perhaps I did something to give him the wrong impression.'"nonadultCampbell, writing for <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/liza-campbell-i-heard-taps-running-then-hey-wanna-join-me-in-the-bath-dv2zwh08c">the Sunday Times</a> Oct. 8, said Weinstein offered her a job as a script reader in 1995; shortly after, he invited her to what she thought was a business meeting at his room at the Savoy. Once she was in his hotel room, he went to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and asked her to take a bath with him, saying that she could "soap" him. She declined, angry, and left the room, she said.nonadultIn an article published by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/09/actor-romola-garai-felt-violated-after-harvey-weinstein-encounter">The Guardian</a> Oct. 9, the actor said she had a meeting with Weinstein in his hotel room at the Savoy when she was 18. Weinstein was wearing only a bathrobe; she told The Guardian, "I felt violated by it," and said Weinstein would put women in “humiliating situations” to demonstrate his own power. “At the time I understood myself to be a commodity and that my value in the industry rested almost exclusively on the way I looked and I didn’t really think of myself to be any more than that,” she said, explaining that it had never occurred to her to tell her story publicly until now. People in the industry, she thought, would be “shocked I even thought it was an issue.”nonadultGodbold wrote in an <a href="http://www.acesconnection.com/blog/my-encounter-with-harvey-weinstein-and-what-it-tells-us-about-trauma">essay</a> published Oct. 9 that Weinstein had taken her on an “office tour that became an occasion to trap me in an empty meeting room” where he begged her for a massage with “his hands on my shoulders as I attempted to beat a retreat.” She tried to exit the situation, she said, “while not wanting to alienate the most powerful man in Hollywood.” In her essay, she wondered about the women who might have submitted to Weinstein, and considered the shame and blame that “would follow you for submitting to a powerful man because he made that your best or only option at the time.”nonadultActor and director Lina Esco <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/violence-threats-begging-harvey-weinsteins-30-year-pattern-of-abuse-in-hollywood/2017/10/14/2638b1fc-aeab-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?tid=ss_tw&amp;utm_term=.1d1464ca7b79">told the Washington Post</a> that she first met Weinstein at a dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, where she believed she would be talking to him about film. Instead, she said Weinstein told her during dinner: "I think we should see a movie in the theater, like back in the day, and we should kiss." She told the paper that she brushed him off by saying she didn't date older men, but that Weinstein insisted, and then "tried to insinuate that everything would be easier for me if I went along."nonadultActor and comedian Chelsea Skidmore told the Washington Post that she encountered Weinstein in 2013, when she met him for tea at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills after a producer suggested it to her. Two of Weinstein's assistants were initially at the meeting, Skidmore said, but later left. Weinstein then told her, "We're going upstairs," she said.
Skidmore <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/violence-threats-begging-harvey-weinsteins-30-year-pattern-of-abuse-in-hollywood/2017/10/14/2638b1fc-aeab-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_weinstein501pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;utm_term=.a753027c2587">told the Post</a> that in Weinstein's suite, the film mogul asked for a massage and, after she refused, began to masturbate in front of her. When he finished, he asked her to write a pilot for him. Skidmore said she had three more encounters with him, all under the pretense of work. Twice, she said, he exposed himself and another time he tried to coerce her to get physical with another woman. "He had just a very forceful way of going about things," she said. "He forces himself on you, talks you into it and doesn't leave you with an option."
In a final meeting in 2016, Skidmore said she tried to keep the conversation focused on business until he walked out of the room and then returned naked asking, "Can you help me out?" He allegedly forced her to stand next to him in front of a mirror while he masturbated. She said she then ran out of the room crying.nonadultBritish actor Lysette Anthony accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her 15 years ago, and reported the incident to London's Metropolitan Police last week, her friend Charlotte Metcalf, a documentary filmmaker, wrote <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lysette-anthony-i-answered-the-door-harvey-weinstein-pushed-me-inside-and-raped-me-in-my-own-hallway-hx8tk2ccq">in The Sunday Times</a>.
In one incident, Metcalf alleges that Anthony told her Weinsten had grabbed her at his New York home while he was half-dressed. In another, she said Weinsten went to Anthony's home. When Anthony answered the door in her dressing gown, Metcalf writes, Weinstein allegedly pushed her inside and rammed her against a coat rack while reaching inside her gown. Anthony said she tried to push him off her, but was not able to. "He came over my leg like a dog and left," she told Metcalf.nonadultFormer Brazilian model Juliana De Paula <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-weinstein-fashion-models-20171021-htmlstory.html">told the Los Angeles Times</a> that she was first introduced to Weinstein at a party in Manhattan in 2007, when she and a group of other models were invited to continue the evening at the film executive's SoHo loft.
In the elevator up to his apartment, De Paula said, Weinstein began groping the women's breasts and forcing them to kiss one another, "like putting both heads together,” De Paula told the paper.
When the group later migrated to a bedroom, De Paula said she fled to the kitchen, but was followed by a nude Weinstein, who backed off only after she brandished a broken wine glass.
“He looked at me and he started to laugh,” she told the paper. “I was shocked. I was completely in disbelief.”
De Paula's roommate at the time confirmed to the LA Times that he remembered her recounting the story after it occurred. Through a spokesperson, Weinstein dismissed the former model's allegations as a "fabrication," according to the report.nonadultLauren Holly, known for her roles in <i>Dumb and Dumber</i> and <i>NCIS</i>, said she was asked to a business meeting with Weinstein in a hotel room in the 1990s when she was in her 30s.
Holly <a href="http://www.thesocial.ca/News/Headlines/Lauren-Holly-shares-her-Harvey-Weinstein-encounter">told Canadian talk show <i>The Social</i></a> that she went into the meeting excited to discuss her career, and at first, Weinstein treated her professionally.
Then, she said, he left and returned in a bathrobe. He continued to talk business as he dropped the robe, used the toilet, and began to shower. But everything changed as he walked out of the shower naked and began to come toward her, Holly said.
"I wanted to flee," Holly told <i>The Social</i>. "I was scared. He told me I looked stressed. He thought maybe I could use a massage, maybe I could give him a massage."
Holly said shed tried to talk her way out of the situation, and Weinstein began to get angry. He told her that leaving would be bad for her career, she said.
She pushed him away and ran out of the room.
"From that moment, I didn't quite make as many movies, I began to go into television," she said. "I'm not sure why. I have my suspicions."nonadultIn an <a rel="nofollow" href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/harvey-weinstein-asia-argento-fabrizio-lombardo-1202590176/">interview with Variety</a>, Panagrosso said that she was groped by Weinstein in a swimming pool, and later in a cabin on a private yacht, while in Cannes for the film festival there in 2003.
After first meeting Weinstein at a dinner, where Panagrosso said the film executive made lewd comments and advancements, the model said that Weinstein approached her in a hotel pool and "started to grope me under water." Panagrosso said that though she spurned Weinstein's advances in the pool, and rejected a dinner invitation, he later entered the cabin where she was staying on a private yacht.
“He pushed me on the bed, tried groping me and I tried to play it off because I thought he’s not going to do anything because my friends are on the boat. But it got very frustrating to get him out. It was like bargaining," she told Variety. "When I said ‘no’ he said ‘maybe if I can’t massage you, will you massage me?’ When I said no to that he said ‘come on why are you being so difficult, all the [other] women are ok with it. I don’t see what you are making such a fuss about. Let me see your breasts at least.’”
A spokesperson for Weinstein has rejected Panagrosso's account, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-weinstein-fashion-models-20171021-htmlstory.html">telling the Los Angeles Times</a> that her “recollection of events differs from that of Mr. Weinstein."nonadultIn an <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BaUBLfFFMDb/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=amberandergram">Instagram post</a> on Oct. 16, Anderson, a British model and actress, offered an account of an alleged private meeting she had with Weinstein in 2013, when she was 20 years old.
"Once we were alone the mood changed," Anderson wrote. "He behaved inappropriately and propositioned a 'personal' relationship to further my career whilst bragging about other actresses he had 'helped' in a similar way. He told me not to tell anyone I was alone with him, told me if I did it might affect my 'opportunities.' He tried to take my hand and put it in his lap which is when I managed to leave the room."nonadultIn the aftermath of the New York Times and New Yorker reports about Weinstein's alleged pattern of sexual assault and misconduct, Masse came forward with her own account of an alleged encounter she had with an underwear-clad Weinstein when she was working as a nanny in New York City in 2008.
In an <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/harvey-weinstein-accuser-sarah-ann-masse-sexual-misconduct-1202587343/">interview with Variety</a>, Masse said that the nanny agency she worked for informed her of an opportunity to work for the Weinstein family, caring for the film executive's three older children. After a series of pre-interviews, she said, she was told Weinstein wanted to meet her for an interview at his home in Connecticut. When she arrived, she said, Weinstein opened the door in his boxers, and proceeded to conduct the entire interview in his underwear.
When the interview was finished, she said, Weinstein — still wearing only his boxers — gave her an extended embrace and told Masse that he loved her. She did not get the nanny job, she said, and was told that it was because she was an actor.nonadult<i>This is a developing story and may be updated.
Mary Ann Georgantopoulos and Tasneem Nashrulla contributed reporting to this post.</i>nonadultHow The FBI Shapes Its Image Through Movieshttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/fbi-in-hollywood?utm_term=4ldqpia
When director Henry-Alex Rubin requested the FBI’s help with his 2012 cyber drama Disconnect, he wanted notes on the screenplay’s accuracy. But he suspected they wanted something more.

“They understand that perception is everything,” he told BuzzFeed News of the FBI. “The more they are perceived well, the easier their job is.”

He recalled that the FBI employee who reviewed the shooting draft of his film proposed changes to a scene in which two agents aggressively questioned a journalist.

“I remember distinctly the consultant saying to me, ‘This is not at all how we operate,’” he said. As Rubin recalled, the consultant told him that the FBI approaches people in a manner that “at least on the surface” is “kind and cooperative, and that attitude usually yields much more results than being suspicious or aggressive.”

Rubin changed the scene.

“If we don’t tell our story, then fools will gladly tell it for us.”

The director was right to think that the FBI is keenly concerned with its public perception: Hundreds of pages of FBI documents BuzzFeed News has obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal that the FBI actively seeks to control and burnish its image through consulting work on films. Over the past five years, the FBI’s Hollywood-focused Investigative Publicity and Public Affairs Unit has played a role in the development of hundreds of movies, television shows, and documentaries. Examples are varied, and include the newly released Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House, a biopic about the famous Watergate leaker Deep Throat; the 2012 straight-to-DVD Miley Cyrus romp So Undercover; and an episode of the docuseries Fatal Encounters. The bureau views these projects as marketing tools for an agency that desperately wants to build the FBI “brand,” the documents say.

“If we don’t tell our story, then fools will gladly tell it for us,” reads an August 2013 FBI PowerPoint slide advising bureau personnel how to use the media to their benefit. “Most people form their opinion of the FBI from pop culture, not a two-minute news story.”

The slide also includes this bullet point: “In any given week, Nielsen data indicates that FBI-themed dramas or documentaries reach 100,000,000+ people in the United States.” (Nielsen did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment on this data point.)

According to that slideshow, the FBI’s public affairs office — which acts as the liaison between the entertainment industry and the bureau — reviewed 728 requests for assistance on media ranging from novels to big-budget blockbusters in 2012 alone. FBI consultations are free for the filmmaker (although not for the taxpayer), and the consultations described in these documents ranged in scale from a cursory informational email exchange to “personnel and time intensive” multi-day shoots at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, DC.

The majority of productions asked for something relatively small, like a quick fact-check or permission to use the FBI logo. In one brief consultation from March 2011, the FBI seriously considered a request from the screenwriter of the musical zombie horror-comedy Diamond Dead. The writer “was looking to put the FBI in a chase for zombies ‘just because’ in his [mind] he thought the fictitious FBI in his script would like to research the zombies,” an FBI employee wrote in the documents. “I advised him to try with someone like NIH, HHS, CDC, or another health/medical government agency as it would be of no interest to the FBI unless they committed a crime.”

The writer-producer who made that call, Andrew Gaty, told BuzzFeed News, “I always like to do fairly serious research,” recalling that he spoke with the staffer for a few minutes. “My basic question was, what would the FBI do if they found zombies?”

“My basic question was, what would the FBI do if they found zombies?”

The FBI doesn’t just field queries from filmmakers but also takes a proactive role when an opportunity arises to advance its own public relations interests. Indeed, a few years ago, an FBI agent was reading a Hollywood trade publication when the agent came upon a story about a movie that would star Sylvester Stallone as reputed mob enforcer and FBI informant Gregory Scarpa. The agent was intrigued and decided to reach out to Nicholas Pileggi, the Goodfellas scribe who was writing the Scarpa screenplay, to ask “if he wanted FBI input,” according to the FBI documents. Pileggi apparently was interested and told the FBI agent he would make contact when “he was ready to start the project.” Pileggi’s representative did not respond to a request for comment, and the film is still in development.

Christopher Allen, the Investigative Publicity and Public Affairs Unit chief, told BuzzFeed News that the FBI could not provide updated figures about the number of productions it has assisted with since 2013. But productions featuring the FBI continue at a rapid pace. Mark Felt was released Sept. 29. In October, Netflix will premiere Mindhunter — a series about FBI agents who study and track down serial killers — and CBS will air the 280th episode of its own serial-killer-catcher procedural, Criminal Minds. The Netflix series consulted directly with the FBI, and the former agent who wrote the book Mind Hunter, John E. Douglas, is a credited consultant on the show. Criminal Minds has also consulted with the bureau, and this season, an agent turned producer will have his 11th writing credit on the show.

Although the bureau explicitly says it “does not edit or approve [filmmakers’] work,” winning cooperation from the FBI often means portraying the bureau in a positive light. According to the documents, the FBI will sometimes deny permission to use the logo for reasons that border on petty: One film was turned down in 2008 because the FBI’s role in the movie was too small. And for certain projects — like the Silence of the Lambs trilogy, the 2009 Johnny Depp film Public Enemies, and 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard — the bureau will go to extraordinary lengths to assist production teams, assigning agents to answer questions on call or approving multi-day shoots on FBI grounds. Additionally, the bureau conducts semi-regular “FBI 101” workshops at the Writers Guild, instructing screenwriters on the ins and outs of working with the bureau; an invitation to one such event in June called it “your opportunity to engage the FBI directly.”

Matthew Cecil, a scholar of the FBI’s image, told BuzzFeed News that the FBI’s relationship with Hollywood dates back eight decades. The bureau’s PR strategies have been “remarkably” successful in advancing the FBI's goal of making people “more comfortable with the idea of this extremely powerful agency.” Cecil, who wrote Branding Hoover’s FBI, distinguished the bureau’s branding from that of the CIA (which has an “entertainment industry liaison”): “They’ve never been good at it at all.”

The FBI is still secretive about how it interacts with Hollywood filmmakers. It took three years and a lawsuit to pry loose these documents. But nearly a dozen filmmakers who spoke to BuzzFeed News were mostly open and positive about the liaison. The majority recounted how deeply impressed they were by the thoroughness and professionalism of the FBI employees they interacted with. “They were highly intelligent, and they could see easily what the script was trying to say, and where it was going,” said Peter Woodward, who wrote the 2010 Samuel L. Jackson film Unthinkable.

Filmmakers explained that they contact the FBI because they want their work to be more realistic. “I have always found the FBI to be extremely and productively cooperative and open. … I’ve actually found them almost as eager understand the narrative I’m after as I am,” said Mark Felt writer-director and former journalist Peter Landesman.

But it’s clearly more than just an educational exercise for the bureau. Internally, the FBI says it has a “mission interest in developing the public image of the FBI and ensuring an accurate portrayal of FBI personnel, past and present, in order to encourage public cooperation with the FBI in performing its mission.” The documents show that the unit evaluates how high-profile a project is going to be before deciding to approve consultation, generally reserving their highest levels of assistance for projects expected to be blockbusters. The unit’s guidelines for requests specify that the agency needs to know “whether the project is ‘sold,’ ‘green lit,’ commissioned, or speculative.”

In one 44-page spreadsheet that logged more than 200 requests made between 2005 and 2014, Tom Hanks was name-dropped three times (for Captain Phillips, Parkland, and Mark Felt). In another document referring to the predicted blockbuster Live Free or Die Hard, the office acknowledged that the movie was not about the bureau — in the final film, FBI characters spend much of their screen time describing the havoc caused by hackers. And yet the Office of Public Affairs approved a two-day shoot at the J. Edgar Hoover Building involving around 400 extras; additionally, an agent from the Los Angeles office worked with the production “extensively, to include sitting in on production meetings.” In contrast, another project received a recommendation that “LIMITED ASSISTANCE BE PROVIDED AS THIS IS A FIRST TIME SCREENWRITER.”

Tom Hanks as FBI agent Carl Hanratty in the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can.

The FBI’s self-interest was evident to Ed Saxon, the Silence of the Lambs producer who was the bureau’s point person on the 1991 film. Saxon expressed some misgivings about the consulting arrangement. “We had political qualms about how closely we were working with the FBI and how much we were making the FBI look like heroes when the FBI’s history as an organ of the state has been complicated, to say the least,” he told BuzzFeed News.

In a nod to those reservations, director Jonathan Demme added a line to the film about the agency’s record of civil rights abuses, Saxon said. “To Jonathan in particular, it was important that he wasn't just making a commercial for the United States police department.” The production team knew the FBI viewed the movie as a recruiting tool for female agents: “Our picture — with a heroic female agent, or agent trainee, at its center — lined up well with their goals,” the producer said.

Saxon’s take is more in line with internal records at the FBI. The bureau’s recommendations for cooperating with filmmakers generally emphasize a commitment to accuracy, but sometimes they refer directly to how the agency appears. A few documents stated that the goal was not only to support authentic depictions but favorable ones; one said, “Most of the time, Hollywood writers do not seek our input and oftentimes they get it wrong. So when given the opportunity to educate the writers/producers we have found we are in a better position to possibly have them portray the FBI in a positive light and with accuracy, or fairly close to accurate.”

There are also hints that the bureau wants to remind the public that FBI employees are people, too. When the FBI recommended that personnel should be interviewed on camera for a special feature on the 2000 DVD release of Donnie Brasco, a document explained that “[t]he segment would satisfy the public’s desire to learn about the FBI by showing the human, personal side of an Agent’s job.”

The documents suggest that the ideal onscreen FBI character is approachable, polite, and not conducting surveillance. In April 2012, someone from the production of the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson crime caper Empire State put in a request to use the FBI seal in the film on short notice. After the unit reviewed the script, the request was denied, in part because the script featured bureau personnel being rude to local law enforcement. “P. 70 had FBI agents rolling onto scene and immediately condescending NYPD,” the log says. “Also later in script agents were ‘dragging’ patrons out of restaurants and theaters...the script does not accurately portray FBI procedures and personnel and therefore use of official SEAL was declined via email on 4/27/2012.”

This position — preferring a restrained image of the bureau — was echoed in the recommendation for Public Enemies, which followed the hunt for a group of 1930s bank robbers. Although the FBI approved significant consulting on Public Enemies, a document noted that the film “‘heightens the image of the FBI as an agency seeking to win by whatever means necessary,’ not necessarily a flattering portrayal.”

And the FBI has long wanted to avoid associations with covert surveillance in particular. Wiretapping, as Cecil writes in Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate, was expressly forbidden from the TV series that the bureau essentially coproduced in the ’60s and ’70s; that aversion continues to the present day. A request was declined in 2012 not only because a “[f]ictional agent has incredibly small role” but also because the agent was “not portrayed in best light (mostly through scare tactics of wiretapping and other surveillance).” And on the podcast Crime and Science Radio in 2015, FBI Public Affairs Specialist Betsy Glick said that bureau officials shaped fictional portrayals of the FBI because they don’t want people “getting a bunch of erroneous, negative, Big Brother–type messages from the media” — explicitly referring to the pervasive state surveillance in the book 1984.

"[I]f all the people see in the movies or in pop culture are negative and wrong antagonistic portrayals, they’re not gonna cooperate."

Notably, one of the most prominent recent films that was critical of the FBI — 2014’s Selma, which portrays the bureau’s intense surveillance of civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. — relied on books, documentaries, and internal FBI documents, and not on consultation with the bureau itself. Director Ava DuVernay, who also rewrote the script, was not available for an interview, but her representative confirmed to BuzzFeed News that she never reached out to the FBI for assistance; neither did screenwriter Paul Webb, his representative said.

One screenwriter’s takeaway from an FBI seminar held at the Writers Guild — that the FBI largely worked with filmmakers because the agency wants to seem friendly and approachable — was repeated by Glick on the podcast. “How does the FBI solve crimes?” she asked. Glick answered her own question: “We solve crimes when people are willing to talk to an agent when he knocks on their door, and if all the people see in the movies or in pop culture are negative and wrong antagonistic portrayals, they’re not gonna cooperate. Our mission is to build the trust of the American people so that they can help us solve our operational mission.” ●

Adam Beach at the Suicide Squad world premiere in New York in August 2016.

Jamie Mccarthy / Getty Images

Earlier this summer, Suicide Squad actor Adam Beach called for a boycott of Kevin Costner’s forthcoming TV period drama Yellowstone ahead of its 2018 release. He was challenging the Native ancestry of one of the show’s actors, Kelsey Asbille, who had identified herself as Cherokee and Asian-American but who, by Beach’s reckoning, was not Native. “What got me jolted by it was that I have a lot of Native female actors that need a job,” Beach, who is Saulteaux, told BuzzFeed News. “I immediately called it out.”

His proposed boycott didn’t get much traction when he first proposed it in mid-July. But in August, the New York Times identified Asbille as a descendent of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Soon after, actor-producer Sonny Skyhawk made an inquiry to the nation’s Tribal Enrollment Office, which declared in a letter (embedded at the bottom of this page) that the tribe had no record of Asbille, nor could they find any evidence that she was a descendant.

So far, Asbille has not addressed the boycott, and representatives for the actor declined to comment for this story. Likewise, Costner and the show’s white creator, Taylor Sheridan, did not respond to requests for comment. The silence frustrates Beach. “They really ignored us,” he said.

Kelsey Asbille

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images

The small debate surrounding this particular actor has sparked a larger conversation over Native identity and representation, both onscreen and behind the scenes. That conversation is intensified by the scarcity of Native roles in the first place, and the dearth of Native professionals actually hired to shape the stories that are told in film and television.

“If we had American Indians involved in some of the above-the-line positions in 2017, we would avoid a lot of these controversies,” said Joely Proudfit, Ph.D., a professor of American Indian studies and cofounder of The Native Networkers, which consults on media representation of indigenous people. “More often than not, we're not even a part of the conversation of diversity in Hollywood.”

The lack of opportunities for Native actors is part of the reason some indigenous actors took issue with Asbille’s identification as Cherokee and her role in Yellowstone. Actor DeLanna Studi — who is also the Chair of the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee — told BuzzFeed News that in the last 17 years, she has never been asked to audition for a non-Native role.

“If it was more of a level playing field — where our Native actors were being cast as leads in How to Get Away With Murder or Grey’s Anatomy, where they can just be a human being — then there wouldn't be this need for us to be protective of the roles that are just for us,” Studi said. “But the truth is, our Native actors aren't getting the chance to audition for those roles. We don't get the same opportunities as other groups, so that makes every Native role precious.”

There is no consensus on who gets to play Native characters in film and television projects. As Studi put it, “I don't have time to be the Indian police,” but “when the industry hires Native American actors who grew up steeped in their culture and are familiar with their language and their ceremony … they’re going to bring a cultural awareness and sensitivity that a non-Native actor will not be able to bring.”

While many people self-identify as Native American, by law and by custom, Native communities have historically decided who is a member. However, “Native identity and tribal affiliation is really complicated — mainly a result of genocide and Indian removal and assimilation efforts,” Heather Rae, a film producer and another cofounder of The Native Networkers, told BuzzFeed News. “I know the tribe has an official position on tribal identification, but there are many Native people who understand the diaspora that separated families from tribal systems.” Like Asbille, Rae identifies as Cherokee but is not an enrolled member of a tribal system. “I certainly don't take the position that Kelsey is not Cherokee, because I don't know.”

The New York Times reporter Kevin Noble Maillard told BuzzFeed News that Asbille had said she was Cherokee, but that he got the more specific lineage from The Weinstein Company’s press materials; Asbille was clear with him that “she didn’t grow up in a Native community” and never stated that she was an enrolled member, he said. “I’m glad that my article is starting this conversation,” said Maillard, who is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. “The last thing that I’d want to happen from all of this is for people to create a pecking order of an authenticity Olympics.”

And for Rae, Proudfit, and Studi, it matters less whether an actor has indigenous ancestors; all three were more concerned with how actively performers were involved in Native American communities. “We know who shows up. I know who is being vocal for our people,” said Studi. “If they did not grow up in the culture or they’re not trying to learn about the culture, then they're only going to be able to portray what they think Native America is. And unfortunately a lot of people don’t know who we are as Native Americans today.”

Matt Winkelmeyer

Audiences — and most Americans — have a narrow view of who Native people are and what they look like. That has a lot to do with onscreen depictions, which often show indigenous characters with a certain physicality, almost invariably something like Pocahontas in the Disney cartoon. “People keep imagining what Indians are supposed to look like and then finding things to fit that,” Proudfit said. Rather than reflecting the diversity of actual Native people, mainstream TV and film have relied on a funhouse mirror of fictional depictions reflecting other fictional depictions. Instead of that toxic self-reflexivity, diverse representation of marginalized groups can lead to civil rights gains, she said, pointing to positive portrayals of LGBT Americans in media as a catalyst for progressive milestones in recent years.

“I realize how important the media is to changing policy, to changing the future for my family, my community,” Proudfit said. “If people just knew who Indians were in the 21st century! But they don't get to see that, because that just is not what is portrayed.”

Although Studi said she’s frustrated with the controversy around Yellowstone, she doesn’t think boycotting Paramount Network’s project is the appropriate response. “I see moments like this as opportunities for us to have these conversations and to present to the industry the different resources that are available to them whenever they want to do Native content,” she said. “Did they mess up? They did. Can they fix it? Yes, they can. And we have to be willing to help them fix it.”

Proudfit was adamant that this one casting choice wasn’t the point. “I don’t want to minimize this to one individual,” she said. “That’s not where we’re going. That's the crumbs on the floor, not the cake on the table.”

If you have an idea for a story regarding Native American representation in Hollywood, email us.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/yellowstone-native-representation-controversyWed, 04 Oct 2017 15:50:05 -0400A new TV show is highlighting the precarious position of Native people in Hollywood. “More often than not, we're not even a part of the conversation of diversity,” one source told BuzzFeed News.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/3/17/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-6913-1507066331-2.jpg?resize=625:416" width="625" height="416" alt="" /></p>
<p>Adam Beach at the <i>Suicide Squad</i> world premiere in New York in August 2016.</p>
<p><small>Jamie Mccarthy / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>Earlier this summer, <i>Suicide Squad</i> actor Adam Beach called for a boycott of Kevin Costner&rsquo;s forthcoming TV period drama <i>Yellowstone</i> ahead of its 2018 release. He was challenging the Native ancestry of one of the show&rsquo;s actors, Kelsey Asbille, who had identified herself as Cherokee and Asian-American but who, by Beach&rsquo;s reckoning, was not Native. &ldquo;What got me jolted by it was that I have a lot of Native female actors that need a job,&rdquo; Beach, who is Saulteaux, told BuzzFeed News. &ldquo;I immediately called it out.&rdquo;</p><p>His proposed boycott didn&rsquo;t get much traction when he first proposed it in mid-July. But in August, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/movies/wind-river-native-american-actors-casting.html">the New York Times identified Asbille</a> as a descendent of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Soon after, actor-producer <a href="http://www.pechanga.net/content/eastern-band-cherokee-indians-says-wind-river-and-yellowstone-actress-not-enrolled-nor-desce">Sonny Skyhawk made an inquiry</a> to the nation&rsquo;s Tribal Enrollment Office, which declared in a letter (embedded at the bottom of this page) that the tribe had no record of Asbille, nor could they find any evidence that she was a descendant.</p><p>So far, Asbille has not addressed the boycott, and representatives for the actor declined to comment for this story. Likewise, Costner and the show&rsquo;s white creator, Taylor Sheridan, did not respond to requests for comment. The silence frustrates Beach. &ldquo;They really ignored us,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/3/17/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-7040-1507066399-5.jpg?resize=720:915" width="720" height="915" alt="" /></p>
<p>Kelsey Asbille</p>
<p><small>Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>The small debate surrounding this particular actor has sparked a larger conversation over Native identity and representation, both onscreen and behind the scenes. That conversation is intensified by the scarcity of Native roles in the first place, and the dearth of Native professionals actually hired to shape the stories that are told in film and television.</p><p>&ldquo;If we had American Indians involved in some of the above-the-line positions in 2017, we would avoid a lot of these controversies,&rdquo; said Joely Proudfit, Ph.D., a professor of American Indian studies and cofounder of The Native Networkers, which consults on media representation of indigenous people. &ldquo;More often than not, we&#39;re not even a part of the conversation of diversity in Hollywood.&rdquo;</p><p>The lack of opportunities for Native actors is part of the reason some indigenous actors took issue with Asbille&rsquo;s identification as Cherokee and her role in <i>Yellowstone</i>. Actor DeLanna Studi &mdash; who is also the Chair of the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee &mdash; told BuzzFeed News that in the last 17 years, she has never been asked to audition for a non-Native role.</p><p>&ldquo;If it was more of a level playing field &mdash; where our Native actors were being cast as leads in <i>How to Get Away With Murder</i> or <i>Grey&rsquo;s Anatomy</i>, where they can just be a human being &mdash; then there wouldn&#39;t be this need for us to be protective of the roles that are just for us,&rdquo; Studi said. &ldquo;But the truth is, our Native actors aren&#39;t getting the chance to audition for those roles. We don&#39;t get the same opportunities as other groups, so that makes every Native role precious.&rdquo;</p><p>There is no consensus on who gets to play Native characters in film and television projects. As Studi put it, &ldquo;I don&#39;t have time to be the Indian police,&rdquo; but &ldquo;when the industry hires Native American actors who grew up steeped in their culture and are familiar with their language and their ceremony &hellip; they&rsquo;re going to bring a cultural awareness and sensitivity that a non-Native actor will not be able to bring.&rdquo;<br /></p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-10/3/17/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-16984-1507066804-1.jpg?resize=720:482" width="720" height="482" alt="" /></p>
<p>DeLanna Studi in <i>Blessed</i>, a 2016 short film.</p>
<p><small><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.throughthewildernessllc.com/">throughthewildernessllc.com</a></small></p>
<p>While many people self-identify as Native American, by law and by custom, Native communities have historically decided who is a member. However, &ldquo;Native identity and tribal affiliation is really complicated &mdash; mainly a result of genocide and Indian removal and assimilation efforts,&rdquo; Heather Rae, a film producer and another cofounder of The Native Networkers, told BuzzFeed News. &ldquo;I know the tribe has an official position on tribal identification, but there are many Native people who understand the diaspora that separated families from tribal systems.&rdquo; Like Asbille, Rae identifies as Cherokee but is not an enrolled member of a tribal system. &ldquo;I certainly don&#39;t take the position that Kelsey is not Cherokee, because I don&#39;t know.&rdquo;<br /></p><p>The New York Times reporter Kevin Noble Maillard told BuzzFeed News that Asbille had said she was Cherokee, but that he got the more specific lineage from The Weinstein Company&rsquo;s press materials; Asbille was clear with him that &ldquo;she didn&rsquo;t grow up in a Native community&rdquo; and never stated that she was an enrolled member, he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad that my article is starting this conversation,&rdquo; said Maillard, who is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. &ldquo;The last thing that I&rsquo;d want to happen from all of this is for people to create a pecking order of an authenticity Olympics.&rdquo;</p><p>And for Rae, Proudfit, and Studi, it matters less whether an actor has indigenous ancestors; all three were more concerned with how actively performers were involved in Native American communities. &ldquo;We know who shows up. I know who is being vocal for our people,&rdquo; said Studi. &ldquo;If they did not grow up in the culture or they&rsquo;re not trying to learn about the culture, then they&#39;re only going to be able to portray what they think Native America is. And unfortunately a lot of people don&rsquo;t know who we are as Native Americans today.&rdquo;<br /></p>
<p><small>Matt Winkelmeyer</small></p>
<p>Audiences &mdash; and most Americans &mdash; have a narrow view of who Native people are and what they look like. That has a lot to do with onscreen depictions, which often show indigenous characters with a certain physicality, almost invariably something like Pocahontas in the Disney cartoon. &ldquo;People keep imagining what Indians are supposed to look like and then finding things to fit that,&rdquo; Proudfit said. Rather than reflecting the diversity of actual Native people, mainstream TV and film have relied on a funhouse mirror of fictional depictions reflecting other fictional depictions. Instead of that toxic self-reflexivity, diverse representation of marginalized groups can lead to civil rights gains, she said, pointing to positive portrayals of LGBT Americans in media as a catalyst for progressive milestones in recent years.<br /></p><p>&ldquo;I realize how important the media is to changing policy, to changing the future for my family, my community,&rdquo; Proudfit said. &ldquo;If people just knew who Indians were in the 21st century&#33; But they don&#39;t get to see that, because that just is not what is portrayed.&rdquo;</p><p>Although Studi said she&rsquo;s frustrated with the controversy around <i>Yellowstone</i>, she doesn&rsquo;t think boycotting Paramount Network&rsquo;s project is the appropriate response. &ldquo;I see moments like this as opportunities for us to have these conversations and to present to the industry the different resources that are available to them whenever they want to do Native content,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Did they mess up? They did. Can they fix it? Yes, they can. And we have to be willing to help them fix it.&rdquo;</p><p>Proudfit was adamant that this one casting choice wasn&rsquo;t the point. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to minimize this to one individual,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not where we&rsquo;re going. That&#39;s the crumbs on the floor, not the cake on the table.&rdquo;</p>
<iframe src="/embed/sub/item-1h4jm?sb=118699022&cb=1513217175" width="625" height="625" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p><i>If you have an idea for a story regarding Native American representation in Hollywood, email us.</i><br /></p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultLOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 26: Actor Kelsey Asbille attends the premiere of The Weinstein Company's "Wind River" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on July 26, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)nonadultAdam Beach at the <i>Suicide Squad</i> world premiere in New York in August 2016.nonadultKelsey AsbillenonadultDeLanna Studi in <i>Blessed</i>, a 2016 short film.nonadultHeather Rae and Joely ProudfitnonadultnonadultnonadultIsso é o que você precisa ler para entender o fundador da Playboy além dos clichêshttps://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/hugh-hefner-morte?utm_term=4ldqpia

Hugh Hefner, the editor-in-chief and founder of Playboy magazine, died of natural causes at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles Wednesday. He was 91.

Hefner founded Playboy in 1953 and it became infamous for its seductive centerfolds. It remains one of the largest magazines in the US and around the world, with at least 20 licensed international editions.

"My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights, and sexual freedom," his son, and Playboy Enterprises' chief creative officer, Cooper Hefner, said in a statement. "He will be greatly missed by many, including his wife Crystal, my sister Christie and my brothers David and Marston and all of us at Playboy Enterprises."

Born in Chicago, Hefner served in the military and worked in journalism before founding Playboy, at age 27, with a small loan. The first issue featured Marilyn Monroe in the centerfold, with images taken for a nude calendar four years earlier, before she became famous. In 2011, Hefner bought the crypt next to Monroe at the West Hollywood Cemetery, though the two never met.

"You know I'm a sucker for blondes, and she is the ultimate blonde," he told CBS2, calling Monroe "the definitive sex icon of our time."

Hefner's magazine began publishing its now-iconic centerfold in 1955 — a two-page spread with a titillating photo of a woman. As the magazine took off in the '50s, Hefner shed a marriage to his former classmate Mildred Williams and embraced the sybaritic life depicted on those glossy pages.

In 1962, the magazine introduced the "Playboy Interview," which was lauded for its great writing, starting a long-running joke that people read the magazine for the articles, rather than the pictures. Hefner also hosted television shows related to the brand, including Playboy's Penthouse in 1959 and Playboy After Dark in 1969.

Hefner was married three times, and while he himself grew older, his bride was always twentysomething as she walked down the aisle. Hailing from a Methodist family in the Midwest, he styled himself as someone who transcended the sexual puritanism endemic in the United States, despite his carefully tailored embodiment of an old-fashioned form of masculinity.

He read Alfred Kinsey's research enthusiastically and experimented with bisexuality in the 1950s; he claimed to be a proponent and an instigator of the "sexual revolution"; and yet he acknowledged in his autobiography that Playboy was "a romantic reflection of earlier times." Although the Playboy fantasy was inherently conservative, the philanthropic Playboy Foundation was a financial supporter of the fight for abortion rights.

"Women were the major beneficiary of the sexual revolution," Hefner said in Esquire in 2007. "Unfortunately, within feminism, there has been a puritan, prohibitionist element that is antisexual." In the same piece, Hefner called himself a feminist.

Playboy's circulation peaked at 7 million in the '70s, around the time Hefner moved from Chicago to the storied Playboy Mansion, where he continued to live and work for the rest of his life. His company took a dive in the 1980s, when many of the Playboy Clubs were shuttered, and again in the 1990s, with the rise of easily accessible internet porn, which made his pornographic magazine seem irrelevant. In 2015, the magazine abruptly announced that it would stop publishing nude photos, although it reversed that decision earlier this year.

Hefner and a collection of his live-in girlfriends also managed to reach a new audience, starring in an E! reality TV series called The Girls Next Door from 2005 to 2010. He married one of those girlfriends, Crystal Harris, in 2012. It was at this time that he also announced his youngest son, Cooper, would take over Playboy Enterprises.

Hefner receives kisses from Playboy playmates in 1999.

Laurent Rebours / AP

Hefner is survived by his wife, Crystal Harris; his three sons, David, Marston, and Cooper Hefner; and a daughter, Christie Hefner.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/hugh-hefner-the-founder-of-playboy-has-died-at-91Thu, 28 Sep 2017 00:40:29 -0400The iconic magazine's founder, who was at the forefront of the sexual revolution, was 91.mbvdnonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-09/27/23/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-31503-1506570458-7.jpg?resize=720:479" width="720" height="479" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Kristian Dowling / AP</small></p>
<p>Hugh Hefner, the editor-in-chief and founder of Playboy magazine, died of natural causes at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles Wednesday. He was 91.</p><p>Hefner founded Playboy in 1953 and it became infamous for its seductive centerfolds. It remains one of the largest magazines in the US and around the world, with at least 20 licensed international editions.<br /></p><p>"My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights, and sexual freedom," his son, and Playboy Enterprises&#39; chief creative officer, Cooper Hefner, said in a statement. "He will be greatly missed by many, including his wife Crystal, my sister Christie and my brothers David and Marston and all of us at Playboy Enterprises."</p>
<p>Born in Chicago, Hefner served in the military and worked in journalism before founding Playboy, at age 27, with a small loan. The first issue featured Marilyn Monroe in the centerfold, with images taken for a nude calendar four years earlier, before she became famous. In 2011, Hefner bought the crypt next to Monroe at the West Hollywood Cemetery, though the two never met.<br /><br />"You know I&#39;m a sucker for blondes, and she is the ultimate blonde," he told <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/08/03/hugh-hefner-talks-about-his-memories-of-marilyn-monroe/">CBS2</a>, calling Monroe "the definitive sex icon of our time."<br /></p><p>Hefner&#39;s magazine began publishing its now-iconic centerfold in 1955 &mdash; a two-page spread with a titillating photo of a woman. As the magazine took off in the &#39;50s, Hefner shed a marriage to his former classmate Mildred Williams and embraced the sybaritic life depicted on those glossy pages.</p><p>In 1962, the magazine introduced the "Playboy Interview," which was lauded for its great writing, starting a long-running joke that people read the magazine for the articles, rather than the pictures. Hefner also hosted television shows related to the brand, including <i>Playboy&#39;s Penthouse</i> in 1959 and <i>Playboy After Dark</i> in 1969.</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-09/27/23/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-31614-1506570446-3.jpg?resize=720:502" width="720" height="502" alt="" /></p>
<p>Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner holds a birthday cake to celebrate his 80th birthday.</p>
<p><small>Francois Mori / ASSOCIATED PRESS</small></p>
<p>Hefner was married three times, and while he himself grew older, his bride was always twentysomething as she walked down the aisle. Hailing from a Methodist family in the Midwest, he styled himself as someone who transcended the sexual puritanism endemic in the United States, despite his carefully tailored embodiment of an old-fashioned form of masculinity.</p><p>He read Alfred Kinsey&#39;s research enthusiastically and experimented with bisexuality in the 1950s; he claimed to be a proponent and an instigator of the "sexual revolution"; and yet he acknowledged in his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jul/17/hugh-hefner-playboy-biography">autobiography</a> that Playboy was "a romantic reflection of earlier times." Although the Playboy fantasy was inherently conservative, the philanthropic Playboy Foundation was a financial supporter of the fight for <a href="http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01441">abortion rights</a>.</p><p>"Women were the major beneficiary of the sexual revolution," Hefner said in <a href="http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a1229/esq0602-jun-wil/">Esquire</a> in 2007. "Unfortunately, within feminism, there has been a puritan, prohibitionist element that is antisexual." In the same piece, Hefner called himself a feminist.</p><p>Playboy&#39;s circulation peaked at 7 million in the &#39;70s, around the time Hefner moved from Chicago to the storied Playboy Mansion, where he continued to live and work for the rest of his life. His company took a dive in the 1980s, when many of the Playboy Clubs were shuttered, and again in the 1990s, with the rise of easily accessible internet porn, which made his pornographic magazine seem irrelevant. In 2015, the magazine abruptly announced that it would stop publishing nude photos, although it <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/playboy-is-bringing-back-nude-photos?utm_term=.rxNJK9nNR#.voDqVl804">reversed</a> that decision earlier this year.</p><p>Hefner and a collection of his live-in girlfriends also managed to reach a new audience, starring in an E&#33; reality TV series called <i>The Girls Next Door</i> from 2005 to 2010. He married one of those girlfriends, Crystal Harris, in 2012. It was at this time that he also announced his youngest son, Cooper, would take over Playboy Enterprises.</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-09/27/23/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-11157-1506570448-8.jpg?resize=720:527" width="720" height="527" alt="" /></p>
<p>Hefner receives kisses from Playboy playmates in 1999.</p>
<p><small>Laurent Rebours / AP</small></p>
<p>Hefner is survived by his wife, Crystal Harris; his three sons, David, Marston, and Cooper Hefner; and a daughter, Christie Hefner.<br /></p>
<p><strong>LINK:</strong> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/celebrities-react-to-the-death-of-hugh-hefner?utm_term=.xnNDXvjL0#.cry3Dyoxw" rel="nofollow">Celebrities React To The Death Of Hugh Hefner</a></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultnonadultLAS VEGAS, NV - FEBRUARY 20: Impersonator George Kane of Florida as Hugh Hefner presents an award during The Reel Awards 2017 at the Golden Nugget Hotel &amp; Casino on February 20, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)nonadultnonadultPlayboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner holds a birthday cake to celebrate his 80th birthday.nonadultSome People Thought It Was Too Soon For Sean Spicer's Joke At The Emmyshttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/sean-spicer-emmys?utm_term=4ldqpia
“Shame on the Emmys for the Spicer validation.”

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer appeared at the 2017 Emmys on Sunday in a gag bit with host Stephen Colbert. He jokingly echoed the falsehood he told about the number of people who watched President Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

In his capacity as White House press secretary, Spicer said in January, "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, PERIOD, both in person and around the globe."

At the Emmys, during Colbert's monologue, Spicer came out onstage with a mobile podium reminiscent of the one Melissa McCarthy used in her impersonation of him on Saturday Night Live and said, "This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, PERIOD, both in person and around the world."

In the press room, Alec Baldwin, who won an Emmy for impersonating Trump on SNL, told reporters, "I think that people in the business, the average person, is very grateful for him to have a sense of humor and participate."

He continued: "Spicer obviously was compelled to do certain things that we might not have respected, we might not have admired, we might have been super critical of, in order to do his job, but I've done some jobs that are things that you shouldn't admire or respect before, either, so he and I have that in common."

CBS

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/sean-spicer-emmysMon, 18 Sep 2017 01:38:04 -0400"Shame on the Emmys for the Spicer validation."arianelangenonadultIn his capacity as White House press secretary, Spicer <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/01/21/sean-spicer-donald-trump-inauguration-crowd-bts.cnn">said</a> in January, "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, PERIOD, both in person and around the globe."
At the Emmys, during <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/krystieyandoli/stephen-colbert-was-incredibly-political-in-his-emmys?utm_term=.pbemJDrap#.eekwRmdn1">Colbert's monologue</a>, Spicer came out onstage with a mobile podium reminiscent of the one Melissa McCarthy used in her impersonation of him on <i>Saturday Night Live</i> and said, "This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, PERIOD, both in person and around the world."nonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultHe continued: "Spicer obviously was compelled to do certain things that we might not have respected, we might not have admired, we might have been super critical of, in order to do his job, but I've done some jobs that are things that you shouldn't admire or respect before, either, so he and I have that in common."nonadultnonadultIn an interview with the <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/arts/television/sean-spicer-emmys.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;referer=">New York Times</a>, Spicer said the gag was “an attempt to poke a little fun at myself and add a little bit of levity to the event.” He also said it was Colbert who suggested the idea.nonadultRoger Ailes Was Memorialized At The Emmys And People Were Angryhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/roger-ailes-emmys?utm_term=4ldqpia
The late Fox News patriarch was accused of sexual harassment by more than 20 women before his death in May of this year.

One woman told The Cut that Ailes engaged in "psychological torture" of her for more than 20 years, pressuring her into performing oral sex on him, among disturbing allegations.

New York Magazine reported that Ailes told one of his anchors, Gretchen Carlson, "I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better."

And in an interview with the magazine, another former television producer recalled Ailes telling her, “If you want to make it in New York City in the TV business, you’re going to have to fuck me, and you’re going to do that with anyone I tell you to.”

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/roger-ailes-emmysSun, 17 Sep 2017 23:57:41 -0400The late Fox News patriarch was <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/how-fox-news-women-took-down-roger-ailes.html">accused of sexual harassment</a> by more than 20 women before his death in May of this year.arianelangenonadultOne woman told <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/fmr-fox-booker-harassed-by-ailes-for-20-years.html">The Cut</a> that Ailes engaged in "psychological torture" of her for more than 20 years, pressuring her into performing oral sex on him, among disturbing allegations.
<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/how-fox-news-women-took-down-roger-ailes.html">New York Magazine</a> reported that Ailes told one of his anchors, Gretchen Carlson, "I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better."
And in an interview with the magazine, another former television producer recalled Ailes telling her, “If you want to make it in New York City in the TV business, you’re going to have to fuck me, and you’re going to do that with anyone I tell you to.”nonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultHow Many Women Directed These Emmy-Winning Series?https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/emmys-women-directors-hm-weird?utm_term=4ldqpia
Just an innocent question!

To refresh everyone's memory, half the people in the world are women. But how many episodes of the 2017 Emmys' Outstanding Series nominees were directed by women?

Rules: For Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Drama Series, and Outstanding Limited Series, I looked at the IMDB credits on seasons with episodes that fell within the 2017 Emmys eligibility period (June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017). We've known since October of 2015 that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was investigating Hollywood for gender discrimination against female directors, so everyone should have had plenty of time to reflect on their hiring practices.

Nominees:Atlanta: 1 episode of 10 was directed by a womanBlack-ish: 9 episodes of 24 were directed by womenMaster of None: 2 episodes of 10 were directed by a womanModern Family: 8 episodes of 22 were directed by womenSilicon Valley: 4 episodes of 10 were directed by a womanUnbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: 4 episodes of 13 were directed by women

Better Call Saul: 1 episode of 10 was directed by a womanThe Crown: 0 of its 10 episodes were directed by womenHouse of Cards: 6 episodes of 13 were directed by womenStranger Things: 0 of its 8 episodes were directed by womenThis Is Us: 4 episodes of 18 were directed by womenWestworld: 1 episode of 10 was directed by a woman

Hulu

Big Little Lies, Outstanding Limited Series: 0 of its 7 episodes were directed by women (N.B. all episodes were directed by the same man)

Fargo: 2 episodes of 10 were directed by a womanFeud: 4 episodes of eight were directed by womenGenius: 2 episodes of 10 were directed by womenThe Night Of: 0 of its 8 episodes were directed by women

HBO

These 19 shows had 221 episodes between them. There were 19 series nominated and only two — Handmaid's Tale and Feud — hired women to direct 50% or more of their episodes, but they were all white women. Of the individual female directors counted, less than a third were women of color.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/emmys-women-directors-hm-weirdSun, 17 Sep 2017 19:28:24 -0400Just an innocent question!arianelangenonadultRules: For Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Drama Series, and Outstanding Limited Series, I looked at the IMDB credits on seasons with episodes that fell within the 2017 Emmys eligibility period (June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017). We've known since <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-women-directors-discrimination-investigation-20151002-story.html">October of 2015</a> that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was investigating Hollywood for gender discrimination against female directors, so everyone should have had plenty of time to reflect on their hiring practices.nonadult<b>Nominees:</b>
<i>Atlanta</i>: 1 episode of 10 was directed by a woman
<i>Black-ish</i>: 9 episodes of 24 were directed by women
<i>Master of None</i>: 2 episodes of 10 were directed by a woman
<i>Modern Family</i>: 8 episodes of 22 were directed by women
<i>Silicon Valley</i>: 4 episodes of 10 were directed by a woman
<i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>: 4 episodes of 13 were directed by womennonadult<i>Better Call Saul</i>: 1 episode of 10 was directed by a woman
<i>The Crown</i>: 0 of its 10 episodes were directed by women
<i>House of Cards</i>: 6 episodes of 13 were directed by women
<i>Stranger Things</i>: 0 of its 8 episodes were directed by women
<i>This Is Us</i>: 4 episodes of 18 were directed by women
<i>Westworld</i>: 1 episode of 10 was directed by a womannonadult<i>Fargo</i>: 2 episodes of 10 were directed by a woman
<i>Feud</i>: 4 episodes of eight were directed by women
<i>Genius</i>: 2 episodes of 10 were directed by women
<i>The Night Of</i>: 0 of its 8 episodes were directed by womennonadultThese 19 shows had 221 episodes between them. There were 19 series nominated and only two — <i>Handmaid's Tale</i> and <i>Feud</i>&nbsp;— hired women to direct 50% or more of their episodes, but they were all white women. Of the individual female directors counted, less than a third were women of color.
<i>Stranger Things</i>, <i>The Crown</i>, and <i>Big Little Lies</i> hired only male directors.nonadultnonadultThis post has been updated to reflect the winners.nonadultFormer Employees Of A Beloved LA Movie Theater Describe Sexism In The Workplacehttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/cinefamily-women?utm_term=4ldqpia

Jonathan Leibson / Getty Images

After two top executives at a beloved Los Angeles movie theater resigned last Tuesday (Aug. 22) amid a sexual misconduct scandal, the cinematheque distanced itself from the alleged inappropriate behavior. “Our nonprofit organization has zero tolerance for any action intended to harm or injure our staff, volunteers, or patrons,” a press release from Cinefamily said. Only one harassment complaint had been filed in the past two years, the statement continued. But on Saturday, a second statement took a more self-reflective tone, saying the theater was suspending all activities to allow for an outside firm to investigate alleged impropriety. On Sunday, the board president told BuzzFeed News he, too, had resigned. Sources close to the board said on Monday that they were working to appoint new leadership for the organization as soon as possible.

Over four days last week, in interviews with BuzzFeed News, 17 former Cinefamily employees and volunteers described endemic sexism dating back to the organization’s earliest days, much of which was chronicled in complaints to management. The former employees said the now-former board vice president, Shadie Elnashai, had a reputation for inappropriately hitting on staff and volunteers — screenshots provided to BuzzFeed News show the now-former board president Simon Oré was informed in 2016 that Elnashai was inappropriately pursuing volunteers at the nonprofit theater. And the former employees said that even aside from the settled 2014 sexual harassment lawsuit against cofounder and now-former executive creative director Hadrian Belove, he was known to use the female volunteers as a dating pool and openly had sexual relationships with his employees. Executive Managing Director Trevor Jones wrote to BuzzFeed News that when he started two years ago he made it clear that relationships between higher-ups and subordinates were unacceptable, and he was never aware of any relationship of that nature. But screenshots provided to BuzzFeed News show Oré acknowledging in 2016 that the “only reason [a staff member] is there is cause H wants to Fuck her.”

“My god, capital YES,” said one woman who worked at the theater on and off for the better part of a decade when asked if Belove hit on volunteers. She and former theater manager Anthony Cutrone said they had seen Belove leave through the back door of the theater late at night with many volunteers. Karina Chacham, who volunteered on and off at Cinefamily from 2010 to 2016, told BuzzFeed News, “When I started volunteering, I was told he liked to test the new meat.” Other former employees echoed this, saying Belove would gravitate toward pretty young women. Chacham said she witnessed Belove receiving oral sex from a volunteer in a backyard at a party with employees present. There was a pervasive culture of misogyny in the workplace which one male former programmer, William Morris, went as far as to call “an active rape culture.”

In response to a detailed summary of the contents of this article, Belove said in a statement that over the last decade he had terminated many people, and “sadly many of these bitter ex-employees and their friends have banded together and sought to destroy Cinefamily through a campaign of false accusations to the media.” His complete statement is at the bottom of this article.

Women of Cinefamily was cofounded by the employee who sued Belove for sexual harassment.

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

The problems were there from the beginning, former theater manager Matt Cornell said. Cornell, who said he wrote the theater’s mission statement with Belove at his kitchen table in the summer of 2007, told BuzzFeed News he proposed that the theater should have a sexual harassment policy. Belove, he recalled, showed “absolute contempt for the idea. ... He didn’t want to do things like a normal, socially responsible business would,” he said.

A woman who worked at Cinefamily when it started said Belove told another man right in front of her that he “started Cinefamily to get laid.” While she worked there, she said he was “sleeping with employees, including someone I managed.” That person was then promoted over her, she said. Jackie Gomez, a former office manager, said she recalled the same woman who got the promotion getting “preferential treatment” from Belove.

Belove denied that he gave preferential treatment to employees he dated. In the statement provided to BuzzFeed News, he said he was single and had a limited social network because of his demanding work schedule, so from 2007 to 2011, “I dated about 3-4 employees while I worked there.” He added that “when I saw that inter-office dating caused disruption in the workplace, I stopped it. I haven’t dated anyone who worked there for many years.” Jones responded that the alleged preferential treatment predated his time at Cinefamily, but “if this happened in the way described then it should have resulted in discipline and likely termination. This type of behavior must never be tolerated, and certain[ly] never occurred since my joining.”

While nothing in California or federal law totally prohibits workplace sexual relationships, those involving bosses and subordinates can lead to problems and open an organization up to liability, including quid pro quo relationships (a form of sexual harassment), favoritism, and exploitation — or even just the appearance of those issues.

Cornell recalled discussing American Apparel sexual harassment scandals (there were several in 2007 and 2008) with Belove around the same time; he remembered that they argued about how that company preferentially hired attractive young women. “[Belove] said we should be doing the same thing because it would sell more popcorn,” Cornell said. Similarly, Mario Muñoz, who started as a volunteer coordinator in 2012, said Belove told him they needed more “hot girls” to be volunteers. Nedjelko Spaich, a former membership director, said that at least twice Belove told him to “fire certain employees because they weren’t attractive enough.” According to Spaich, Belove said it was imperative that “the first face you see in the ticket window is a beautiful face.” Cutrone, the former theater manager, said, “When I hired women that he didn’t think were attractive, you could tell he had some kind of grudge,” explaining that Belove would be cold and distant toward them.

Former volunteer coordinator Hayley Pogue felt that because she didn’t fit Belove’s physical ideal of a sexually attractive woman — several sources described the executive’s preference as “waifish,” and one person described his type as “Sharon Tate” — he treated her differently. “He really saw no point to me,” said Pogue, who worked at Cinefamily from 2013 to 2014. Another woman reiterated Pogue’s contention, saying Belove saw two types of women in the world: “The ones he can sleep with, and the rest of us are just to yell at and do his bidding.” A female former assistant programmer said she noticed Belove would ask her to make coffee specifically when visitors were watching.

Pogue said Belove physically grabbed her at least twice, at one point dragging her “jerkily and harshly” to the office coffeepot and forcing her hand through the motions of making coffee: “I left my body,” she said. Spaich, who usually made the coffee but hadn’t that morning, said he heard Belove angrily tell Pogue, “You’re the office secretary.” The female former assistant programmer said that while one male programmer mentored her, Belove always made clear, “You’re the assistant to the programmer. … Like he had watched Season 1 of Mad Men and said, ‘This is great,’ and never watched the rest of it.”

Jesse Grant / Getty Images

Several people indicated that there was no formal human resources administrator until after the 2014 sexual harassment lawsuit (detailed in this complaint). When an HR position was finally established after the lawsuit ended, Belove appointed a woman he was close friends with and maintained an openly flirtatious relationship with her. Some former employees said they did not feel comfortable going to her with problems because of her coziness with Belove. The staffer who handled some HR issues did not respond directly to BuzzFeed News’ request for a comment on those circumstances, but wrote, “Some of the ways this is being handled in media and on social media is irreparably damaging the lives of many women affiliated with or working at Cinefamily, that everyone is purportedly trying to help.” She did not respond to questions asking for clarification.

When workers did complain, they were often brushed aside or penalized, former employees said. Gomez said that in 2010 when she realized a male employee was making almost twice as much money as a female employee in a similar position, she brought the issue to Belove’s attention; days later, her office manager position was eliminated, Gomez said. A 2014 volunteer said that when an influential patron of Cinefamily started calling her on the phone and masturbating, she told staff members and got the distinct impression that there was no recourse for her because he was “far more important than [her].” Another former employee said she complained to board members and executive managing director Trevor Jones in 2015 about Belove, reporting that he’d had a “next-level man tantrum” and thrown things at her. “It was terrifying,” she told BuzzFeed News. In response, she said two board members — Elnashai and board president Oré — told her the incident was “he said, she said” and they couldn’t address it.

That female source contacted BuzzFeed News because she was concerned that the current attention on Belove was distracting from the men who shielded and enabled his and Elnashai’s behavior. She was also bothered that the story was currently being framed by journalists as one that “exposed” the harassment lawsuit. She said that a copy of court documents related to Belove’s 2014 sexual harassment case was left sitting out for months in Cinefamily’s office. She believed it was a sign that the sexual harassment was acceptable. Chacham remembered it too: “He knew he would not ever get in trouble,” she said.

Additional internal emails provided to BuzzFeed News reveal how, in November 2016, female employees complained in an email thread that included Jones about a frequent patron who, as one staffer wrote, “makes women uncomfortable including myself.” According to former employees, no action was taken by management against the guest, although Jones wrote back, “This complaint will be handled appropriately and professionally,” before scolding employees for airing their grievances “in an email thread.” One of the women who chimed in on the thread told BuzzFeed News she was “directly pulled aside” by Belove, who told her the frequent guest was “a really important journalist and movie critic” and couldn’t be banned.

Jones said that during an investigation of this claim, two of the women who complained in emails said it was their primary concern that the guest had been sneaking into and out of the theater and not that they were “afraid” of him. The guest, he said, was warned that the next complaint would lead to his banning. “I am a daytime employee and seldom interact with the guests,” Jones said. “It was decided, because of this, that Hadrian would [be] a better candidate to deliver that message.”

An email provided to BuzzFeed News revealed how Jones responded to a harassment complaint against Elnashai filed in August of last year. “I have related the contents of your report to Shadie Elnashai and I have informed him that effective immediately he is prohibited from any romantic or physical interaction with any female employees or volunteers of the Cinefamily,” Jones wrote to Morris, who made the complaint, which, according to Morris, included allegations that Elnashai had inappropriately touched a woman in the theater. Jones continued in the email: “Should any such interaction occur off site, it must be disclosed to the Executive Director's Trevor Jones and Hadrian Belove or it will be assumed to have been unwelcome, and additional action will be taken.”

Screenshot from Hadrian Belove's deleted Facebook post.

Via Facebook

Elnashai in particular was known to make women uncomfortable, said a woman who worked on and off at the theater for the better part of the last decade. “A lot of girls would verbalize it the second it happened,” she said. And she thought Elnashai’s motives for being there were clear: “It’s wasn’t like, Oh, Shadie loves movies. … Shadie doesn’t watch the movies — he just hits on girls in the back.” She herself recounted that in early 2016, Elnashai approached her on the theater’s private patio, then “picked up my drink, and drank it.” He then stepped closer to her, she stepped away, and he stepped toward her again, stepping away only after she said she had a boyfriend. “It was as though I had been tagged,” she said. “Like I was a hooker — like ‘all the women in the parlor are yours!’” She informed a programmer that he had made her uncomfortable.

“I am unaware of this incident, and I am disappointed that this programmer never brought it to my attention,” Jones said in response to the latter accusation. Elnashai did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

Karina Chacham

The resignations of Belove and Elnashai have clearly roiled Los Angeles cinephiles, who revere Cinefamily as an artistic institution. “It’s turned into a weird civil war,” said the female former assistant programmer. Belove has vigorously defended himself, calling the claims against him “a whisper campaign” in a now-deleted post on Facebook. As one former donor put it to BuzzFeed News, the drama has played out “like a terrible Pynchon work terribly adapted by David O. Russell, down to everyone's first and last names.”

The toxic culture in which Belove’s behavior was the norm at Cinefamily came through in Oré’s messages about a female staffer he believed the cofounder had hired because he “wants to fuck her.” In that message, he continued: “I pulled him aside and told him - ‘you know you’re not allowed. You’re not allowed to fuck that girl.’ - and he said yeah I know - and I said - seriously man. I won’t say it again, but you can not. OR you can’t hire her. -- but I know that in the end he’s going to do whatever he wants.”

Here is Belove's full statement:

I co-founded Cinefamily because I wanted to help make going to the movies fun again and believed that the key was creating a sense of community. I’m proud of what Cinefamily became – a venue that has given a home to thousands of films that otherwise would not have played in Los Angeles.

I wish all the best for Cinefamily and the theater, its employees and volunteers. Los Angeles needs a place like this – a home and audience for independent films, and a unique place for so many displaced angelenos to find each other.

During my time there, I was single and spent virtually 100% of my free time at the theater. I often worked 16 hour days and often slept in the office. With a limited social network, I dated about 3-4 employees while I worked there, all in the early years of 2007 to 2011.

I did not give preferential treatment to employees I dated. There was no quid pro quo. But when I saw that inter-office dating caused disruption in the workplace, I stopped it. I haven’t dated anyone who worked there for many years.

Let me be clear about one thing: Sexual assault is a crime. If I had been told about a sexual assault, I would have encouraged the employee to report the matter to the police. I would have also initiated a personnel investigation and done all I could to support the employee.

Over the last decade, I terminated the employment of many people – some for performance; some because of the theater’s financial problems – and sadly many of these bitter ex-employees and their friends have banded together and sought to destroy Cinefamily through a campaign of false accusations to the media. I can only hope they do not succeed.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/cinefamily-womenMon, 28 Aug 2017 17:59:25 -0400“When I started volunteering, I was told he liked to test the new meat,” a former Cinefamily volunteer said. Cinefamily’s cofounder responds to the accusations.arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/25/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-32474-1503714232-10.jpg?resize=625:417" width="625" height="417" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Jonathan Leibson / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>After two top executives at a beloved Los Angeles movie theater resigned last Tuesday (Aug. 22) amid a sexual misconduct scandal, the cinematheque distanced itself from the alleged inappropriate behavior. &ldquo;Our nonprofit organization has zero tolerance for any action intended to harm or injure our staff, volunteers, or patrons,&rdquo; a <a href="https://twitter.com/cinefamily/status/900165916947697664">press release</a> from Cinefamily said. Only one harassment complaint had been filed in the past two years, the statement continued. But on Saturday, a <a href="https://twitter.com/cinefamily/status/901621483662753793/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2017%2Ffilm%2Fnews%2Fcinefamily-suspends-activities-sexual-misconduct-allegations-1202540021%2F">second statement</a> took a more self-reflective tone, saying the theater was suspending all activities to allow for an outside firm to investigate alleged impropriety. On Sunday, the board president told BuzzFeed News he, too, had resigned. Sources close to the board said on Monday that they were working to appoint new leadership for the organization as soon as possible.</p><p>Over four days last week, in interviews with BuzzFeed News, 17 former Cinefamily employees and volunteers described endemic sexism dating back to the organization&rsquo;s earliest days, much of which was chronicled in complaints to management. The former employees said the now-former board vice president, Shadie Elnashai, had a reputation for inappropriately hitting on staff and volunteers &mdash; screenshots provided to BuzzFeed News show the now-former board president Simon Or&eacute; was informed in 2016 that Elnashai was inappropriately pursuing volunteers at the nonprofit theater. And the former employees said that even aside from the settled 2014 sexual harassment lawsuit against cofounder and now-former executive creative director Hadrian Belove, he was known to use the female volunteers as a dating pool and openly had sexual relationships with his employees. Executive Managing Director Trevor Jones wrote to BuzzFeed News that when he started two years ago he made it clear that relationships between higher-ups and subordinates were unacceptable, and he was never aware of any relationship of that nature. But screenshots provided to BuzzFeed News show Or&eacute; acknowledging in 2016 that the &ldquo;only reason [a staff member] is there is cause H wants to Fuck her.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;My god, capital YES,&rdquo; said one woman who worked at the theater on and off for the better part of a decade when asked if Belove hit on volunteers. She and former theater manager Anthony Cutrone said they had seen Belove leave through the back door of the theater late at night with many volunteers. Karina Chacham, who volunteered on and off at Cinefamily from 2010 to 2016, told BuzzFeed News, &ldquo;When I started volunteering, I was told he liked to test the new meat.&rdquo; Other former employees echoed this, saying Belove would gravitate toward pretty young women. Chacham said she witnessed Belove receiving oral sex from a volunteer in a backyard at a party with employees present. There was a pervasive culture of misogyny in the workplace which one male former programmer, William Morris, went as far as to call &ldquo;an active rape culture.&rdquo;</p><p>In response to a detailed summary of the contents of this article, Belove said in a statement that over the last decade he had terminated many people, and &ldquo;sadly many of these bitter ex-employees and their friends have banded together and sought to destroy Cinefamily through a campaign of false accusations to the media.&rdquo; His complete statement is at the bottom of this article.</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/25/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-17116-1503714426-1.jpg?crop=1600:1492;0,174&resize=625:*" width="625" height="583" alt="" /></p>
<p>Women of Cinefamily was cofounded by the employee who sued Belove for sexual harassment.</p>
<p><small>Frazer Harrison / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>The problems were there from the beginning, former theater manager Matt Cornell said. Cornell, who said he wrote the theater&rsquo;s mission statement with Belove at his kitchen table in the summer of 2007, told BuzzFeed News he proposed that the theater should have a sexual harassment policy. Belove, he recalled, showed &ldquo;absolute contempt for the idea. ... He didn&rsquo;t want to do things like a normal, socially responsible business would,&rdquo; he said.</p><p>A woman who worked at Cinefamily when it started said Belove told another man right in front of her that he &ldquo;started Cinefamily to get laid.&rdquo; While she worked there, she said he was &ldquo;sleeping with employees, including someone I managed.&rdquo; That person was then promoted over her, she said. Jackie Gomez, a former office manager, said she recalled the same woman who got the promotion getting &ldquo;preferential treatment&rdquo; from Belove.</p><p>Belove denied that he gave preferential treatment to employees he dated. In the statement provided to BuzzFeed News, he said he was single and had a limited social network because of his demanding work schedule, so from 2007 to 2011, &ldquo;I dated about 3-4 employees while I worked there.&rdquo; He added that &ldquo;when I saw that inter-office dating caused disruption in the workplace, I stopped it. I haven&rsquo;t dated anyone who worked there for many years.&rdquo; Jones responded that the alleged preferential treatment predated his time at Cinefamily, but &ldquo;if this happened in the way described then it should have resulted in discipline and likely termination. This type of behavior must never be tolerated, and certain[ly] never occurred since my joining.&rdquo;</p><p>While nothing in California or federal law totally prohibits workplace sexual relationships, those involving bosses and subordinates can lead to problems and open an organization up to liability, including quid pro quo relationships (a form of <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/sexualfavor.html">sexual harassment</a>), favoritism, and exploitation &mdash; or even just the appearance of those issues.</p><p>Cornell recalled discussing American Apparel sexual harassment scandals (there were several in 2007 and 2008) with Belove around the same time; he remembered that they argued about how that company preferentially hired attractive young women. &ldquo;[Belove] said we should be doing the same thing because it would sell more popcorn,&rdquo; Cornell said. Similarly, Mario Mu&ntilde;oz, who started as a volunteer coordinator in 2012, said Belove told him they needed more &ldquo;hot girls&rdquo; to be volunteers. Nedjelko Spaich, a former membership director, said that at least twice Belove told him to &ldquo;fire certain employees because they weren&rsquo;t attractive enough.&rdquo; According to Spaich, Belove said it was imperative that &ldquo;the first face you see in the ticket window is a beautiful face.&rdquo; Cutrone, the former theater manager, said, &ldquo;When I hired women that he didn&rsquo;t think were attractive, you could tell he had some kind of grudge,&rdquo; explaining that Belove would be cold and distant toward them.</p><p>Former volunteer coordinator Hayley Pogue felt that because she didn&rsquo;t fit Belove&rsquo;s physical ideal of a sexually attractive woman &mdash; several sources described the executive&rsquo;s preference as &ldquo;waifish,&rdquo; and one person described his type as &ldquo;Sharon Tate&rdquo; &mdash; he treated her differently. &ldquo;He really saw no point to me,&rdquo; said Pogue, who worked at Cinefamily from 2013 to 2014. Another woman reiterated Pogue&rsquo;s contention, saying Belove saw two types of women in the world: &ldquo;The ones he can sleep with, and the rest of us are just to yell at and do his bidding.&rdquo; A female former assistant programmer said she noticed Belove would ask her to make coffee specifically when visitors were watching.</p><p>Pogue said Belove physically grabbed her at least twice, at one point dragging her &ldquo;jerkily and harshly&rdquo; to the office coffeepot and forcing her hand through the motions of making coffee: &ldquo;I left my body,&rdquo; she said. Spaich, who usually made the coffee but hadn&rsquo;t that morning, said he heard Belove angrily tell Pogue, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the office secretary.&rdquo; The female former assistant programmer said that while one male programmer mentored her, Belove always made clear, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the assistant to the programmer. &hellip; Like he had watched Season 1 of <i>Mad Men</i> and said, &lsquo;This is great,&rsquo; and never watched the rest of it.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/25/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-17843-1503714520-1.jpg?resize=625:399" width="625" height="399" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Jesse Grant / Getty Images</small></p>
<p>Several people indicated that there was no formal human resources administrator until after the 2014 sexual harassment lawsuit (detailed in this <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3965399/Poppy-Complaint.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWZKW64MXJ5HXBOA&amp;Expires=1503954722&amp;Signature=k4bB8XAQ0GGc7RKip4kLNqdIDF0%3D">complaint</a>). When an HR position was finally established after the lawsuit ended, Belove appointed a woman he was close friends with and maintained an openly flirtatious relationship with her. Some former employees said they did not feel comfortable going to her with problems because of her coziness with Belove. The staffer who handled some HR issues did not respond directly to BuzzFeed News&rsquo; request for a comment on those circumstances, but wrote, &ldquo;Some of the ways this is being handled in media and on social media is irreparably damaging the lives of many women affiliated with or working at Cinefamily, that everyone is purportedly trying to help.&rdquo; She did not respond to questions asking for clarification.</p><p>When workers did complain, they were often brushed aside or penalized, former employees said. Gomez said that in 2010 when she realized a male employee was making almost twice as much money as a female employee in a similar position, she brought the issue to Belove&rsquo;s attention; days later, her office manager position was eliminated, Gomez said. A 2014 volunteer said that when an influential patron of Cinefamily started calling her on the phone and masturbating, she told staff members and got the distinct impression that there was no recourse for her because he was &ldquo;far more important than [her].&rdquo; Another former employee said she complained to board members and executive managing director Trevor Jones in 2015 about Belove, reporting that he&rsquo;d had a &ldquo;next-level man tantrum&rdquo; and thrown things at her. &ldquo;It was terrifying,&rdquo; she told BuzzFeed News. In response, she said two board members &mdash; Elnashai and board president Or&eacute; &mdash; told her the incident was &ldquo;he said, she said&rdquo; and they couldn&rsquo;t address it.</p><p>That female source contacted BuzzFeed News because she was concerned that the current attention on Belove was distracting from the men who shielded and enabled his and Elnashai&rsquo;s behavior. She was also bothered that the story was currently being framed by journalists as one that &ldquo;exposed&rdquo; the harassment lawsuit. She said that a copy of court documents related to Belove&rsquo;s 2014 sexual harassment case was left sitting out for months in Cinefamily&rsquo;s office. She believed it was a sign that the sexual harassment was acceptable. Chacham remembered it too: &ldquo;He knew he would not ever get in trouble,&rdquo; she said.</p><p>Additional internal emails provided to BuzzFeed News reveal how, in November 2016, female employees complained in an email thread that included Jones about a frequent patron who, as one staffer wrote, &ldquo;makes women uncomfortable including myself.&rdquo; According to former employees, no action was taken by management against the guest, although Jones wrote back, &ldquo;This complaint will be handled appropriately and professionally,&rdquo; before scolding employees for airing their grievances &ldquo;in an email thread.&rdquo; One of the women who chimed in on the thread told BuzzFeed News she was &ldquo;directly pulled aside&rdquo; by Belove, who told her the frequent guest was &ldquo;a really important journalist and movie critic&rdquo; and couldn&rsquo;t be banned.</p><p>Jones said that during an investigation of this claim, two of the women who complained in emails said it was their primary concern that the guest had been sneaking into and out of the theater and not that they were &ldquo;afraid&rdquo; of him. The guest, he said, was warned that the next complaint would lead to his banning. &ldquo;I am a daytime employee and seldom interact with the guests,&rdquo; Jones said. &ldquo;It was decided, because of this, that Hadrian would [be] a better candidate to deliver that message.&rdquo;</p><p>An email provided to BuzzFeed News revealed how Jones responded to a harassment complaint against Elnashai filed in August of last year. &ldquo;I have related the contents of your report to Shadie Elnashai and I have informed him that effective immediately he is prohibited from any romantic or physical interaction with any female employees or volunteers of the Cinefamily,&rdquo; Jones wrote to Morris, who made the complaint, which, according to Morris, included allegations that Elnashai had inappropriately touched a woman in the theater. Jones continued in the email: &ldquo;Should any such interaction occur off site, it must be disclosed to the Executive Director&#39;s Trevor Jones and Hadrian Belove or it will be assumed to have been unwelcome, and additional action will be taken.&rdquo;<br /></p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/28/15/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-23518-1503948158-2.png" width="494" height="437" alt="" /></p>
<p>Screenshot from Hadrian Belove&#39;s deleted Facebook post.</p>
<p><small>Via Facebook</small></p>
<p>Elnashai in particular was known to make women uncomfortable, said a woman who worked on and off at the theater for the better part of the last decade. &ldquo;A lot of girls would verbalize it the second it happened,&rdquo; she said. And she thought Elnashai&rsquo;s motives for being there were clear: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s wasn&rsquo;t like, <i>Oh, Shadie loves movies</i>. &hellip; Shadie doesn&rsquo;t watch the movies &mdash; he just hits on girls in the back.&rdquo; She herself recounted that in early 2016, Elnashai approached her on the theater&rsquo;s private patio, then &ldquo;picked up my drink, and drank it.&rdquo; He then stepped closer to her, she stepped away, and he stepped toward her again, stepping away only after she said she had a boyfriend. &ldquo;It was as though I had been tagged,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Like I was a hooker &mdash; like &lsquo;all the women in the parlor are yours&#33;&rsquo;&rdquo; She informed a programmer that he had made her uncomfortable.</p><p>&ldquo;I am unaware of this incident, and I am disappointed that this programmer never brought it to my attention,&rdquo; Jones said in response to the latter accusation. Elnashai did not respond to BuzzFeed News&rsquo; request for comment.</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/27/20/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-18823-1503880184-2.png?crop=719:757;0,320&resize=625:*" width="625" height="658" alt="" /></p>
<p><small>Karina Chacham</small></p>
<p>The resignations of Belove and Elnashai have clearly roiled Los Angeles cinephiles, who revere Cinefamily as an artistic institution. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s turned into a weird civil war,&rdquo; said the female former assistant programmer. Belove has vigorously defended himself, calling the claims against him &ldquo;a whisper campaign&rdquo; in a now-deleted post on Facebook. As one former donor put it to BuzzFeed News, the drama has played out &ldquo;like a terrible Pynchon work terribly adapted by David O. Russell, down to everyone&#39;s first and last names.&rdquo;</p><p>The toxic culture in which Belove&rsquo;s behavior was the norm at Cinefamily came through in Or&eacute;&rsquo;s messages about a female staffer he believed the cofounder had hired because he &ldquo;wants to fuck her.&rdquo; In that message, he continued: &ldquo;I pulled him aside and told him - &lsquo;you know you&rsquo;re not allowed. You&rsquo;re not allowed to fuck that girl.&rsquo; - and he said yeah I know - and I said - seriously man. I won&rsquo;t say it again, but you can not. OR you can&rsquo;t hire her. -- but I know that in the end he&rsquo;s going to do whatever he wants.&rdquo;</p><p><b>Here is Belove&#39;s full statement:</b></p>
<p>I co-founded Cinefamily because I wanted to help make going to the movies fun again and believed that the key was creating a sense of community. I&rsquo;m proud of what Cinefamily became &ndash; a venue that has given a home to thousands of films that otherwise would not have played in Los Angeles.<br /></p><p>I wish all the best for Cinefamily and the theater, its employees and volunteers. Los Angeles needs a place like this &ndash; a home and audience for independent films, and a unique place for so many displaced angelenos to find each other.</p><p>During my time there, I was single and spent virtually 100% of my free time at the theater. I often worked 16 hour days and often slept in the office. With a limited social network, I dated about 3-4 employees while I worked there, all in the early years of 2007 to 2011.</p><p>I did not give preferential treatment to employees I dated. There was no quid pro quo. But when I saw that inter-office dating caused disruption in the workplace, I stopped it. I haven&rsquo;t dated anyone who worked there for many years.</p><p>Let me be clear about one thing: Sexual assault is a crime. If I had been told about a sexual assault, I would have encouraged the employee to report the matter to the police. I would have also initiated a personnel investigation and done all I could to support the employee.</p><p>Over the last decade, I terminated the employment of many people &ndash; some for performance; some because of the theater&rsquo;s financial problems &ndash; and sadly many of these bitter ex-employees and their friends have banded together and sought to destroy Cinefamily through a campaign of false accusations to the media. I can only hope they do not succeed.</p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultnonadultnonadultWomen of Cinefamily was cofounded by the employee who sued Belove for sexual harassment.nonadultnonadultYou'll Have Questions About Pigs When You Watch "Okja," And Here Are The Answershttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/how-realistic-is-okja?utm_term=4ldqpia
I’m out here calling scientists and reading government reports so you won’t have to! (Some spoilers for Okja.)

If you saw the Netflix movie Okja, you know it’s the sweet and very upsetting story of a young girl who goes on an intercontinental quest to save her beloved “super pig” from the corporation that owns her.

Netflix

The movie explores the difference between ~images~ that are presented to the world and ~reality~.

For one thing, the corporation sent Okja to live an idyllic life playing in the mountains with Mija (Ahn Seo-Hyun) purely as a publicity stunt! They wanted to obscure her origins as a genetically modified creature and distract from the sad living conditions of her fellow super pigs back on the US farm!

Netflix

And then, for my sake and yours, I called a scientist.

Discovery #1: Okja moves her face too much for a pig.

This super pig had way more facial expressions than a real pig would. Humans and other primates communicate a lot of emotions through our faces, which is probably why Okja has this wide facial repertoire: "Because we're primates, that’s what we need to see," said Kristina M. Horback, an assistant professor of animal behavior at the University of California at Davis. Horback is affiliated with the Center for Animal Welfare, and she studies personality traits and emotions in animals — and at the moment, she studies pigs, so she would know!

In fact, Horback was jealous of Mija's ability to communicate with her pig friend. "That’s what my research is: to understand the state of the animal. Are they in a positive state?" In Okja, Mija and her porcine friend are so close they can practically have a conversation. "If we could talk to them, it’d be really great! But it’s a lot harder than that."

Netflix

Discovery #2: Pigs really are very social animals, kind of like Okja!

It follows some real-life pig logic that Okja is so bonded to Mija. Left to their own devices, pigs live in a matrilineal society. Groups of a few sows — adult female pigs who have had piglets — generally have one or two leader sows who decide things like when they should all start foraging for food and when they should all nurse their piglets. (Adult male pigs aren't really part of this mom group, which is called a "sounder.")

It also makes sense that Okja knew her name and responded to Mija's voice. You could train a pig to recognize its name, Horback said. "That’s the same properties as what happens with dogs, or cats, or dolphins. Humans, even. When I hear 'Kristina,' I look," she said.

Netflix

What about that scary farm? This led me to discovery #3: In reality, the slaughterhouse pigs — including the piglet Okja rescues — probably wouldn’t have been outside at all.

The researcher Jeremy N. Marchant-Forde wrote in The Welfare of Pigs that the majority of US pigs are reared indoors. He explained, “The goal of the producer is to grow the pig from weaning to slaughter in as short a time possible and using as little feed as possible. This is best achieved indoors,” in part because it’s easier to control the temperature and it’s easier to prevent food waste.

Netflix

But apparently female pigs are often placed near male pigs because this prompts fertility. Nature!

Discovery #5: Pigs really do scream under stress.

An article in the Iowa State University Animal Industry Report says, “pig vocalization, especially high frequency vocalizations, are directly associated with how dangerous a situation is perceived, and these vocalizations act as warning signals” to fellow pigs.

And the screams could spread! Horback studies pigs' "emotional contagion" — how pigs are affected by the emotional states of other pigs. She says that in a lab setting, pigs will mirror "the same happy body posture and tail-wagging" of a pig who's had a positive experience they have not had. The same goes with negative body posture. From a survival perspective, being empathetic would be an advantage, Horback said: "It makes sense for an animal to pick up on, why are you scared?"

Netflix

Discovery #6: The bolt gun thing that the pigs get shot in the head with is real, but it probably wouldn't be used on a pig in the US.

“For pigs, stunning is done by electrocution or [carbon dioxide] — never captive bolt, as it is not a good method for stunning pigs due to skull configuration and brain placement within the skull,” said the aforementioned Jeremy N. Marchant-Forde, a scientist with the Livestock Behavior Research Unit at the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

In a chapter of The Welfare of Pigs, Marchant-Forde and his co-author, Ruth M. Marchant-Forde, explained that after the pigs are rendered unconscious, they are bled out. Ideally that starts within 15 seconds, before the pig starts regaining consciousness.

Netflix

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/how-realistic-is-okjaThu, 13 Jul 2017 17:24:16 -0400I'm out here calling scientists and reading government reports so you won't have to! (Some spoilers for <i>Okja</i>.)arianelangenonadultnonadultFor one thing, the corporation sent Okja to live an idyllic life playing in the mountains with Mija (Ahn Seo-Hyun) purely as a publicity stunt! They wanted to obscure her origins as a genetically modified creature and distract from the sad living conditions of her fellow super pigs back on the US farm!nonadultAnd then, for my sake and yours, I called a scientist.nonadultThis super pig had way more facial expressions than a real pig would. Humans and other primates communicate a lot of emotions through our faces, which is probably why Okja has this wide facial repertoire: "Because we're primates, that’s what we need to see," said Kristina M. Horback, an assistant professor of animal behavior at the University of California at Davis. Horback is affiliated with the Center for Animal Welfare, and she studies personality traits and emotions in animals —&nbsp;and at the moment, she studies pigs, so she would know!
In fact, Horback was jealous of Mija's ability to communicate with her pig friend. "That’s what my research is: to understand the state of the animal. Are they in a positive state?" In <i>Okja</i>, Mija and her porcine friend are so close they can practically have a conversation. "If we could talk to them, it’d be really great! But it’s a lot harder than that."nonadultIt follows some real-life pig logic that Okja is so bonded to Mija. Left to their own devices, pigs live in a matrilineal society. Groups of a few sows — adult female pigs who have had piglets — generally have one or two leader sows who decide things like when they should all start foraging for food and when they should all nurse their piglets. (Adult male pigs aren't really part of this mom group, which is called a "sounder.")
It also makes sense that Okja knew her name and responded to Mija's voice. You could train a pig to recognize its name, Horback said. "That’s the same properties as what happens with dogs, or cats, or dolphins. Humans, even. When I hear 'Kristina,' I look," she said.nonadultThe researcher Jeremy N. Marchant-Forde wrote in <i>The Welfare of Pigs</i> that the majority of US pigs are reared indoors. He explained, “The goal of the producer is to grow the pig from weaning to slaughter in as short a time possible and using as little feed as possible. This is best achieved indoors,” in part because it’s easier to control the temperature and it’s easier to prevent food waste.nonadultBut apparently female pigs are often placed near male pigs because this prompts fertility. Nature!nonadultAn article in the <a href="http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1509&amp;context=ans_air">Iowa State University Animal Industry Report</a> says, “pig vocalization, especially high frequency vocalizations, are directly associated with how dangerous a situation is perceived, and these vocalizations act as warning signals” to fellow pigs.
And the screams could spread! Horback studies pigs' "emotional contagion" — how pigs are affected by the emotional states of other pigs. She says that in a lab setting, pigs will mirror "the same happy body posture and tail-wagging" of a pig who's had a positive experience they have not had. The same goes with negative body posture. From a survival perspective, being empathetic would be an advantage, Horback said: "It makes sense for an animal to pick up on, why are you scared?"nonadult“For pigs, stunning is done by electrocution or [carbon dioxide] — never captive bolt, as it is not a good method for stunning pigs due to skull configuration and brain placement within the skull,” said the aforementioned Jeremy N. Marchant-Forde, a scientist with the Livestock Behavior Research Unit at the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
In a chapter of <i>The Welfare of Pigs</i>, Marchant-Forde and his co-author, Ruth M. Marchant-Forde, explained that after the pigs are rendered unconscious, they are bled out. Ideally that starts within 15 seconds, before the pig starts regaining consciousness.nonadultnonadultTeen Girls Tried To Stop Austin Jones In 2015https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/teens-austin-jones-2015?utm_term=4ldqpia

Singer and YouTube star Austin Jones was arrested and charged this June for procuring pornographic videos from two 14-year-olds. The criminal complaint lists interactions he had with one girl in the summer of 2016 and another girl just last month; the court documents say, for instance, that in August 2016, Jones told one girl she was “so lucky” to be talking to him and that she should send him nude images to “prove” she was his biggest fan. At a hearing on June 14, a judge ordered the 24-year-old entertainer to stay offline.

Allegations of this nature should be shocking. But for a group of teen girls on the internet, the conversations described in court documents sound all too familiar.

Two years ago, in May 2015, several young women began publishing personal accounts on social media alleging that Jones, known for his a cappella covers of pop songs, had used his fame to solicit sexually suggestive videos from his fans. Unlike the current case, these were not pornographic videos, but the girls did say that he asked them to twerk for him in private messages, and that the older, more powerful man had made them uneasy, sometimes pressuring them into these performances.

The girls came forward because they wanted Jones “exposed,” as several put it to BuzzFeed News. And, at that time, they wanted him off the Vans Warped Tour, the traveling all-ages rock festival, which featured Jones in the summer lineup. These girls’ stories exploded within the YouTube community — and yet the allegations didn’t stick. Although he was quickly removed from the 2015 Grow Wild Tour lineup midway through the tour and, weeks later, booted from Warped Tour before his dates began, his career rebounded: When Jones was arrested this month, he was at an airport returning from a European tour; he had half a million subscribers on YouTube.

The girls said in 2015 that the singer had been inappropriate with them. Before posting about her experience, then–14-year-old Ashley decided that “he shouldn’t be able to have a huge following because it’s just easier for him to take advantage.” A mystified Chicago girl, who also said Jones requested that she twerk for him, told BuzzFeed News, “All that happened was he got kicked off Warped Tour and he went to therapy.” (Jones' attorney did not respond to a request for comment on a detailed summary of this story.)

Two years ago, the girl from Chicago posted a video she’d gotten when she was 14 or 15 of Jones saying it was a good idea for them to stop talking because he was “horny”: “I’m horny, like, all the time, so if we just keep talking, I’m probably gonna ask for videos on, like, a daily basis,” he said in the clip. “So, it’s just, like, easier this way. Yeah. Sorry I’m a guy.” A third girl, Ashlee, who said the YouTuber asked her for twerking videos when she was 15, believed that if Jones had faced greater consequences in 2015, “It would have saved a lot of girls from being in that situation of ‘proving’ that they're his biggest fan.”

The "I'm horny, like, all the time" video was reposted by Damon Fizzy.

The scandal first began in a haze of internet rumors. Damon Fizzy, a YouTuber who was on the Warped Tour lineup with Jones that year, told BuzzFeed News, “The stories were out there, but they were being ignored.” He remembered seeing comments online about strange interactions girls said they’d had with Jones, although he couldn’t remember exactly where he first read them. “I saw that he was manipulating underage girls for his own sexual gain,” he said, and he felt he had to do something. “I know the demographic of Warped Tour: It’s all underage girls.”

Fizzy told Jones’ manager at the time — another YouTuber named BryanStars — that Jones was asking his young fans for twerking videos; Jones recalled that BryanStars changed the subject. (BryanStars did not respond to a request for an interview.) Fizzy said he sent an email to Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman on May 8 that was full of stories he’d collected from young women online. He recalled Lyman saying he would look into it.

Things escalated quickly because on May 7, 2015, the day before Fizzy emailed Lyman, a bizarre video appeared on Twitter. It was posted by a girl named Star, who got the video from Ashley, who said she got the video from Jones about a year prior, when she was just 13. The footage shows Jones leaning into the camera smiling and saying, “Hey, cutie. So this is like, the first basic twerk move.” He laughs, and says gently, “This is what you do.” He turns around, demonstrating as he continues: “You stand with your legs apart, and bend your legs, and then you arch your back, and you unarch it. You do it faster. So it’s like this.” He twerks directly into the camera, and then in profile. He turns to face to the camera again, and says with a shy laugh, “Now it’s your turn.”

The May 7 tweet.

Star and Ashley

The tweet went viral, and Tiff — another girl who knew Jones in passing — saw it. “I contacted [Star] asking about how she obtained the video, etc. I was then directed to Ashley, who I spoke to, and we both decided we were going to try to get Austin kicked off his tours,” she said. Ashley said, “When I exposed him with the help of [Tiff], so many girls” — at least 20 — “came forward and had similar stories.”

“I thought Ashley was the only victim,” the original poster, Star, told BuzzFeed News. She was surprised when the tweet was met by a chorus of “me too.”

Fizzy also saw Ashley’s video the same day Star posted it. In response, he tweeted, “I do not feel comfortable touring with this dude.” Later that night, he tweeted about feeling “anxious,” and then he said, “Do what’s right.” The next day, “Why can't people just be good people? Is it really that hard?”

And then on May 9, the day after contacting Lyman, Fizzy posted a tweet that went viral: “Austin Jones excuse for asking 13 year old girls for videos of them shaking their asses is because he found it funny...great excuse man!” A followup: “I feel like it is my responsibility to help protect people. That kind of behavior SHOULD NOT be tolerated.”

"If he was asking for these videos from the two of us, we knew he would have been asking others."

Many other girls saw Fizzy's tweets about Jones over the next few days, including Ashlee. She said she had tweeted about Jones' twerking requests a year prior, in 2014, but he pressured her and her friend to delete their warnings; she said that, in private messages, Jones told them they were making his "anxiety and depression worse." She and her friend had previously tried to publish their accounts after they realized he had asked both of them for videos, "because we knew we were not the only ones anymore. If he was asking for these videos from the two of us, we knew he would have been asking others." After Fizzy had a hand in making these new allegations against Jones go viral, "My friend and I both posted our stories about Austin to show more proof of how disgusting he is," Ashlee told BuzzFeed News. This time, with greater numbers and louder allies on her side, Ashlee tweeted her screenshots on May 10.

The day before, Tiff had sent Lyman a detailed email that contained links to tweets full of allegations and screenshots that seemed to show Jones asking for twerking videos from young fans. Tiff told Lyman that Jones “was attempting to solicit questionable videos and photos from minors while he was of legal age … many brave girls have began tweeting their experiences with Austin and expressed concern.” He had no place on the tour, she continued.

According to screenshots Tiff sent to BuzzFeed News, Lyman asked her, “[Tiff] do you have copies of the police reports? I have not been able to find them.” Then he sent her a second email: “You seen [sic] like a very caring person and are speaking with them. Please encourage them to go to their parents and police. It is the right thing to do, and being a ‘vine star,’ should not deter them.” Lyman also asked multiple people on Twitter for the “police reports.” The girls BuzzFeed News spoke with did not go to the police. (Notably, it’s unclear what the girls would have reported, since no one said Jones was soliciting — or sending — nude images, unlike the allegations in court documents from this month.)

BuzzFeed News could not find a contemporaneous announcement stating when Jones was kicked off Warped Tour, but a spokesperson for the tour said Jones was informed he was removed from the lineup on May 29, 2015 — at least 21 days after Lyman was informed of the controversy. Before making his final decision, Lyman had decried a “Salem witch hunt mentality” in the Alternative Press on May 11.

In an email to BuzzFeed News, Lyman wrote that the Warped Tour investigation entailed “phone calls, yes people still make them. Talked to a lot [of] people which might have taken those 2 [sic] weeks. … Kinda like the comey, Russia investigation but we did it a whole lot quicker.” He later added that he “it all comes down to due process. … Sometimes it takes time but usually comes to the right end.”

For Ashley, it was disappointing that it took so long to get Jones off Warped Tour. “People didn’t take it seriously enough back then,” she said. She read through the court documents published this month; she said she was horrified by the parallels between what Jones allegedly told the victims and what he told her when she was 13. After Ashley declined to send him a twerking video when he asked for one, “he told me that I was lucky to be even talking to him, similar to what he said in the police report … it’s crazy and disgusting.” (According to the documents, Jones exclaimed last summer to a 14-year-old girl online, “I bet you had NO IDEA when you met me that just 1 day later you’d get to show me your butthole how special do you feel?!”)

The first time around, Ashley said, “So many people defended him, saying, ‘It’s just a dance! This isn’t a big deal.’” The sexual nature of these exchanges was minimized; there was no particular emphasis, for example, on the the evidence that he’d allegedly told a young girl, “Your body is nice. I like it.” Indeed, after the stories were made public, Jones himself emphasized multiple times that “nothing ever went further than twerking videos” and that he wrongly thought these conversations were “just fun and goofy.” For the most part, he didn’t deny the girls’ stories: He reframed them as youthful “mistakes.”

On June 29, 2015, Jones posted a video called “Setting The Record Straight.” In it, he talks for nearly 17 minutes — about how sorry he is; about how all the inappropriate messages happened in the past; about his sister’s death when he was a small child; about his absentee father’s death when he was 16; about his house burning down; about how, after the allegations emerged, he became suicidal. He repeatedly says he wasn’t trying to excuse his actions, but to explain that he asked underage girls to twerk for him because of “depression piling up into me searching for attention.”

In the video, Jones never refers directly to the sexual aspect of his requests. In this video — designed for a wider audience — he presented himself as a man reborn. “I don’t know how to show you guys that, but I think with time, you’ll see,” he said. “You’ll see that I’m better now.”

Some of the girls found “Setting The Record Straight” compelling, to a degree: the Chicago girl said the controversy “kind of died down after Austin pulled the I-almost-committed-suicide-about-it. … I stopped tweeting because I was like, Okay, I don’t want to be the cause of that.”

It seems the singer who now could face 15 to 30 years in prison for each count of child pornography was believed at the time, which is haunting to one girl who came forward in 2015. “It’s just so frustrating, how all of us presented pretty clear evidence that what he was doing was at least predatory,” said Taylor, who posted a video that described her experience with Jones. Taylor said that, once Jones emerged from the controversy effectively unscathed, she had to stop thinking about him: It was too upsetting to see his rise. “He continued to book national tours. ... He was making money off the girls he was targeting. Just thinking about it — I cannot.”

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/teens-austin-jones-2015Mon, 26 Jun 2017 14:51:00 -0400“People didn’t take it seriously enough back then. So many people defended him, saying, ‘It’s just a dance! This isn’t a big deal.’”arianelangenonadult
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/23/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-3727-1498271635-1.png?resize=625:349" width="625" height="349" alt="" /></p>
<p><small><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaIgUQsbDc">youtube.com</a></small></p>
<p>Singer and YouTube star Austin Jones was arrested and charged this June for procuring pornographic videos from two 14-year-olds. The criminal complaint lists interactions he had with one girl in the summer of 2016 and another girl just last month; the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/351203585/Austin-Jones-Child-Porn-Complaint-WARNING-Disturbing-content">court documents</a> say, for instance, that in August 2016, Jones told one girl she was &ldquo;so lucky&rdquo; to be talking to him and that she should send him nude images to &ldquo;prove&rdquo; she was his biggest fan. At a hearing on June 14, a judge ordered the 24-year-old entertainer to stay offline.<br /></p><p>Allegations of this nature should be shocking. But for a group of teen girls on the internet, the conversations described in court documents sound all too familiar.</p><p>Two years ago, in May 2015, several young women began publishing personal accounts on social media alleging that Jones, known for his a cappella covers of pop songs, had used his fame to solicit sexually suggestive videos from his fans. Unlike the current case, these were not pornographic videos, but the girls did say that he asked them to twerk for him in private messages, and that the older, more powerful man had made them uneasy, sometimes pressuring them into these performances.</p><p>The girls came forward because they wanted Jones &ldquo;exposed,&rdquo; as several put it to BuzzFeed News. And, at that time, they wanted him off the Vans Warped Tour, the traveling all-ages rock festival, which featured Jones in the summer lineup. These girls&rsquo; stories exploded within the YouTube community &mdash; and yet the allegations didn&rsquo;t stick. Although he was quickly removed from the 2015 <a href="https://twitter.com/growwildtour/status/597531225109229570">Grow Wild Tour</a> lineup midway through the tour and, weeks later, booted from Warped Tour before his dates began, his career rebounded: When Jones was arrested this month, he was at an airport returning from a European tour; he had half a million subscribers on YouTube.</p><p>The girls said in 2015 that the singer had been inappropriate with them. Before posting about her experience, then&ndash;14-year-old Ashley decided that &ldquo;he shouldn&rsquo;t be able to have a huge following because it&rsquo;s just easier for him to take advantage.&rdquo; A mystified Chicago girl, who also said Jones requested that she twerk for him, told BuzzFeed News, &ldquo;All that happened was he got kicked off Warped Tour and he went to therapy.&rdquo; (Jones&#39; attorney did not respond to a request for comment on a detailed summary of this story.)</p><p>Two years ago, the girl from Chicago posted a <a href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/597593696180113408">video</a> she&rsquo;d gotten when she was 14 or 15 of Jones saying it was a good idea for them to stop talking because he was &ldquo;horny&rdquo;: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m horny, like, all the time, so if we just keep talking, I&rsquo;m probably gonna ask for videos on, like, a daily basis,&rdquo; he said in the clip. &ldquo;So, it&rsquo;s just, like, easier this way. Yeah. Sorry I&rsquo;m a guy.&rdquo; A third girl, Ashlee, who said the YouTuber asked her for twerking videos when she was 15, believed that if Jones had faced greater consequences in 2015, &ldquo;It would have saved a lot of girls from being in that situation of &lsquo;proving&rsquo; that they&#39;re his biggest fan.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/23/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-3681-1498272155-4.png?crop=565:753;0,0&resize=625:*" width="625" height="833" alt="" /></p>
<p>The "I&#39;m horny, like, all the time" video was reposted by Damon Fizzy.</p>
<p><small><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/597593696180113408">Twitter: @deefizzy</a></small></p>
<p>The scandal first began in a haze of internet rumors. Damon Fizzy, a YouTuber who was on the Warped Tour lineup with Jones that year, told BuzzFeed News, &ldquo;The stories were out there, but they were being ignored.&rdquo; He remembered seeing comments online about strange interactions girls said they&rsquo;d had with Jones, although he couldn&rsquo;t remember exactly where he first read them. &ldquo;I saw that he was manipulating underage girls for his own sexual gain,&rdquo; he said, and he felt he had to do something. &ldquo;I know the demographic of Warped Tour: It&rsquo;s all underage girls.&rdquo;</p><p>Fizzy told Jones&rsquo; manager at the time &mdash; another YouTuber named BryanStars &mdash; that Jones was asking his young fans for twerking videos; Jones recalled that BryanStars changed the subject. (BryanStars did not respond to a request for an interview.) Fizzy said he sent an email to Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman on May 8 that was full of stories he&rsquo;d collected from young women online. He recalled Lyman saying he would look into it.</p><p>Things escalated quickly because on May 7, 2015, the day before Fizzy emailed Lyman, a bizarre video appeared on Twitter. It was posted by a girl named Star, who got the video from Ashley, who said she got the video from Jones about a year prior, when she was just 13. The footage shows Jones leaning into the camera smiling and saying, &ldquo;Hey, cutie. So this is like, the first basic <i>twerk move</i>.&rdquo; He laughs, and says gently, &ldquo;This is what you do.&rdquo; He turns around, demonstrating as he continues: &ldquo;You stand with your legs apart, and bend your legs, and then you arch your back, and you unarch it. You do it faster. So it&rsquo;s like this.&rdquo; He twerks directly into the camera, and then in profile. He turns to face to the camera again, and says with a shy laugh, &ldquo;Now it&rsquo;s your turn.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/23/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-20441-1498271968-2.png?resize=625:671" width="625" height="671" alt="" /></p>
<p>The May 7 tweet.</p>
<p><small>Star and Ashley</small></p>
<p>The tweet went viral, and Tiff &mdash; another girl who knew Jones in passing &mdash; saw it. &ldquo;I contacted [Star] asking about how she obtained the video, etc. I was then directed to Ashley, who I spoke to, and we both decided we were going to try to get Austin kicked off his tours,&rdquo; she said. Ashley said, &ldquo;When I exposed him with the help of [Tiff], so many girls&rdquo; &mdash; at least 20 &mdash; &ldquo;came forward and had similar stories.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;I thought Ashley was the only victim,&rdquo; the original poster, Star, told BuzzFeed News. She was surprised when the tweet was met by a chorus of &ldquo;me too.&rdquo;</p><p>Fizzy also saw Ashley&rsquo;s video the same day Star posted it. In response, he tweeted, &ldquo;I do not feel comfortable touring with this dude.&rdquo; Later that night, he <a href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/596502737845616640">tweeted</a> about feeling &ldquo;anxious,&rdquo; and then he <a href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/596509518550274049">said</a>, &ldquo;Do what&rsquo;s right.&rdquo; The next <a href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/596907729152675840">day</a>, &ldquo;Why can&#39;t people just be good people? Is it really that hard?&rdquo;</p><p>And then on May 9, the day after contacting Lyman, Fizzy posted a <a href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/597279662029414400">tweet</a> that went viral: &ldquo;Austin Jones excuse for asking 13 year old girls for videos of them shaking their asses is because he found it funny...great excuse man&#33;&rdquo; A <a href="https://twitter.com/deefizzy/status/597281119306788864">followup</a>: &ldquo;I feel like it is my responsibility to help protect people. That kind of behavior SHOULD NOT be tolerated.&rdquo;</p>
<p>"If he was asking for these videos from the two of us, we knew he would have been asking others."</p>
<p>Many other girls saw Fizzy&#39;s tweets about Jones over the next few days, including Ashlee. She said she had tweeted about Jones&#39; twerking requests a year prior, in 2014, but he pressured her and her friend to delete their warnings; she said that, in private messages, Jones told them they were making his "anxiety and depression worse." She and her friend had previously tried to publish their accounts after they realized he had asked both of them for videos, "because we knew we were not the only ones anymore. If he was asking for these videos from the two of us, we knew he would have been asking others." After Fizzy had a hand in making these new allegations against Jones go viral, "My friend and I both posted our stories about Austin to show more proof of how disgusting he is," Ashlee told BuzzFeed News. This time, with greater numbers and louder allies on her side, Ashlee tweeted her screenshots on May 10.</p><p>The day before, Tiff had sent Lyman a detailed email that contained links to tweets full of allegations and screenshots that seemed to show Jones asking for twerking videos from young fans. Tiff told Lyman that Jones &ldquo;was attempting to solicit questionable videos and photos from minors while he was of legal age &hellip; many brave girls have began tweeting their experiences with Austin and expressed concern.&rdquo; He had no place on the tour, she continued.</p><p>According to screenshots Tiff sent to BuzzFeed News, Lyman asked her, &ldquo;[Tiff] do you have copies of the police reports? I have not been able to find them.&rdquo; Then he sent her a second email: &ldquo;You seen [sic] like a very caring person and are speaking with them. Please encourage them to go to their parents and police. It is the right thing to do, and being a &lsquo;vine star,&rsquo; should not deter them.&rdquo; Lyman also asked multiple people on Twitter for the &ldquo;police reports.&rdquo; The girls BuzzFeed News spoke with did not go to the police. (Notably, it&rsquo;s unclear what the girls would have reported, since no one said Jones was soliciting &mdash; or sending &mdash; nude images, unlike the allegations in court documents from this month.)</p><p>BuzzFeed News could not find a contemporaneous announcement stating when Jones was kicked off Warped Tour, but a spokesperson for the tour said Jones was informed he was removed from the lineup on May 29, 2015 &mdash; at least 21 days after Lyman was informed of the controversy. Before making his final decision, Lyman had decried a &ldquo;Salem witch hunt mentality&rdquo; in the <a href="http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/kevin_lyman_responds_to_accusations_against_warped_tour_youtuber_exclusive">Alternative Press</a> on May 11.</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/23/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-4178-1498271385-1.png" width="588" height="385" alt="" /></p>
<p><small><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/KevinLyman/status/597617587246116865">Twitter: @KevinLyman</a></small></p>
<p>In an email to BuzzFeed News, Lyman wrote that the Warped Tour investigation entailed &ldquo;phone calls, yes people still make them. Talked to a lot [of] people which might have taken those 2 [sic] weeks. &hellip; Kinda like the comey, Russia investigation but we did it a whole lot quicker.&rdquo; He later added that he &ldquo;it all comes down to due process. &hellip; Sometimes it takes time but usually comes to the right end.&rdquo;</p><p>For Ashley, it was disappointing that it took so long to get Jones off Warped Tour. &ldquo;People didn&rsquo;t take it seriously enough back then,&rdquo; she said. She read through the court documents published this month; she said she was horrified by the parallels between what Jones allegedly told the victims and what he told her when she was 13. After Ashley declined to send him a twerking video when he asked for one, &ldquo;he told me that I was lucky to be even talking to him, similar to what he said in the police report &hellip; it&rsquo;s crazy and disgusting.&rdquo; (According to the documents, Jones <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/351203585/Austin-Jones-Child-Porn-Complaint-WARNING-Disturbing-content">exclaimed</a> last summer to a 14-year-old girl online, &ldquo;I bet you had NO IDEA when you met me that just 1 day later you&rsquo;d get to show me your butthole how special do you feel?&#33;&rdquo;)</p><p>The first time around, Ashley said, &ldquo;So many people defended him, saying, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s just a dance&#33; This isn&rsquo;t a big deal.&rsquo;&rdquo; The sexual nature of these exchanges was minimized; there was no particular emphasis, for example, on the the evidence that he&rsquo;d allegedly told a young girl, &ldquo;Your body is nice. I like it.&rdquo; Indeed, after the stories were made public, Jones himself emphasized multiple times that &ldquo;nothing ever went further than twerking videos&rdquo; and that he wrongly thought these conversations were &ldquo;just fun and goofy.&rdquo; For the most part, he didn&rsquo;t deny the girls&rsquo; stories: He reframed them as youthful &ldquo;mistakes.&rdquo;</p><p>On June 29, 2015, Jones posted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaIgUQsbDc">video</a> called &ldquo;Setting The Record Straight.&rdquo; In it, he talks for nearly 17 minutes &mdash; about how sorry he is; about how all the inappropriate messages happened in the past; about his sister&rsquo;s death when he was a small child; about his absentee father&rsquo;s death when he was 16; about his house burning down; about how, after the allegations emerged, he became suicidal. He repeatedly says he wasn&rsquo;t trying to excuse his actions, but to explain that he asked underage girls to twerk for him because of &ldquo;depression piling up into me searching for attention.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/23/22/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-21446-1498271700-1.png?resize=625:349" width="625" height="349" alt="" /></p>
<p><small><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaIgUQsbDc">youtube.com</a></small></p>
<p>In the video, Jones never refers directly to the sexual aspect of his requests. In this video &mdash; designed for a wider audience &mdash; he presented himself as a man reborn. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how to show you guys that, but I think with time, you&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see that I&rsquo;m better now.&rdquo;</p><p>Some of the girls found &ldquo;Setting The Record Straight&rdquo; compelling, to a degree: the Chicago girl said the controversy &ldquo;kind of died down after Austin pulled the I-almost-committed-suicide-about-it. &hellip; I stopped tweeting because I was like, <i>Okay, I don&rsquo;t want to be the cause of that</i>.&rdquo;</p><p>It seems the singer who now could face 15 to 30 years in prison for each count of child pornography was believed at the time, which is haunting to one girl who came forward in 2015. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just so frustrating, how all of us presented pretty clear evidence that what he was doing was at least predatory,&rdquo; said Taylor, who posted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2kiJOP389s&amp;lc=z12sxnh5ctrihfn4h04cflkppxz1thxobso0k">video</a> that described her experience with Jones. Taylor said that, once Jones emerged from the controversy effectively unscathed, she had to stop thinking about him: It was too upsetting to see his rise. &ldquo;He continued to book national tours. ... He was making money off the girls he was targeting. Just thinking about it &mdash; I cannot.&rdquo;</p>
<p><small></small></p>
nonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadultnonadult"Wonder Woman" Is Affecting Cable Optionshttps://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/wonder-woman-cable-provider?utm_term=4ldqpia
Charter/Spectrum told BuzzFeed News they added a “Women of Action” section to their On Demand offerings because of Diana, princess of Themyscira.

And perhaps you've also recently turned on your television and noticed an On Demand movies section called ~Women of Action~.

Through Spectrum, you can rent or purchase — among more popular titles — the 2005 box office flop Aeon Flux (pictured), the 2006 box office flop Ultraviolet, the 2004 box office flop Catwoman, and the 2009 animated film Wonder Woman, which went straight to DVD. Good god, the '00s were a tough time to be a lady hero.

Paramount Pictures

They didn't answer follow-up questions about how the films were selected or whether Women in Action debuted before or after Wonder Woman was released and became a runaway box office success on the weekend it debuted.

Intriguingly, Verizon Fios has its own "Girl Power" section featuring the recently re-released animated Wonder Woman. However, a spokesperson for that company denied its offering had anything to do with the 2017 Patty Jenkins feature.

Their section pairs a cartoon about teen girl heroes with the blood orgy known as Kill Bill. (Only Kill Bill: Volume 2 is pictured here, but volume 1 is also available.)

Verizon

What we've really learned is that we need more lady action hero movies, because there's a sad dearth of them — despite the fact there's clearly an audience for more!!!

#JusticeForCatwoman

Warner Bros.

]]>https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/wonder-woman-cable-providerWed, 14 Jun 2017 13:20:12 -0400Charter/Spectrum told BuzzFeed News they added a "Women of Action" section to their On Demand offerings because of Diana, princess of Themyscira.arianelangenonadultnonadultThrough Spectrum, you can rent or purchase — among more popular titles — the 2005 box office flop <i>Aeon Flux</i> (pictured), the 2006 box office flop <i>Ultraviolet</i>, the 2004 box office flop <i>Catwoman</i>, and the 2009 animated film <i>Wonder Woman</i>, which went straight to DVD. Good god, the '00s were a tough time to be a lady hero.nonadultThey didn't answer follow-up questions about how the films were selected or whether Women in Action debuted before or after <i>Wonder Woman</i> was released and became a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/wonder-woman-box-office?utm_term=.mc5RNOZ2z3#.xgPOQKljbP">runaway box office success</a> on the weekend it debuted.nonadultTheir section pairs a cartoon about teen girl heroes with the blood orgy known as <i>Kill Bill</i>. (Only <i>Kill Bill: Volume 2</i> is pictured here, but volume 1 is also available.)nonadult#JusticeForCatwomannonadult